


You're Not a Friend (No, You're Nothing)

by Abbie



Series: Long Way Down [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aftermath of Violence, Anxiety Attacks, Attempted Sexual Assault, Captivity, Gen, Kidnapping, Lazarus Pit, League of Assassins - Freeform, Original Character(s), Past Child Abuse, Psychological Drama, Sexual Violence, Tommy Merlyn is Alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-02-09 22:05:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 85,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1999650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie/pseuds/Abbie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Days become weeks and Tommy visits Felicity in her cell, where they engage in a dangerous performance of give and take, power and control that will tip the balance of everything they know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You're Not a Friend (No, You're Nothing)

Interludes & YNAF(NYN) [Reading Guide](http://absentlyabbie.tumblr.com/post/140662772058/long-way-down-a-reading-guide)  


 

Felicity sighed as she crossed through another row of O’s on her paper game of tic tac toe. “Looks like I won. Again.”

Groaning in boredom, she slumped across the little wooden table, her games of hangman, tic tac toe, and four square crinkling under her cheek, her extended arm scattering one of her mechanical pencils to the floor.

Just then, the faint sound of the electronic lock disarming sounded through her door and Felicity sat up, tense and watchful in her tan spaghetti strap shirt and black yoga pants. Her fingers curled around the thin, hollow plastic tube of one of her pencils; a flimsy weapon, but better than nothing.

The doorknob rattled once, and Felicity’s brow furrowed. She jumped as the door shuddered under a fist, then swung open to admit a stumbling, swearing Tommy. “That’s usually easier.”

Felicity’s grip relaxed slightly on the pencil, but she didn’t put it down. Instead, she watched Tommy straighten his clothes—a dark purple dress shirt unbuttoned halfway down his otherwise bare chest, close-fitting black slacks, and shiny black motorcycle boots—and shut the door behind him. He turned towards her with a bright, lively grin, the electronic lock beeping beyond him.

"Are you wearing eyeliner?" Felicity asked, blinking. Yeah, that was definitely a thin, dark line edging his lashes, making his bright blue eyes pop even more.

"Yup," Tommy answered, popping the p and waggling his eyebrows at her. "I think it makes me look _terribly_ fetching, don’t you?”

Felicity only snorted in answer. Tommy shrugged at her nonresponse and tossed a suit jacket she hadn’t even noticed folded over his elbow onto the foot of the bed against the near wall.

Still smirking to himself, he strolled across the small room to her table, eyebrows rising under his dark, messy fringe, and eyed her papers. “Looks like _you_ had an exciting evening. Ooh, hangman. You win?”

Felicity stared up at him as he pushed around in her papers, her nose scrunching at his strange mood. “Oh, just a few times.” This close, she noticed how blown his pupils were and, narrowing her eyes, asked, “Are you _high_?”

Meeting her skeptical gaze, he winked at her. “Just a little bit. Had to be convincing.”

She raised her eyebrows, unimpressed, and continued her questioning, uneasy but pressing whatever advantage she might have here. “You were on a job?”

Tommy spun on his heel—Felicity thought he might be imitating Michael Jackson—and strode to her bed, flopping bonelessly down on the slender mattress. “Mhmm.”

"Did you…" Felicity stood, wanting to keep sight of his face, and twisted her fingers together nervously. "Did you kill someone?"

He popped up on his elbows to look at her, starting with her bare feet and moving slowly up to her face, his own expression unreadable with that empty smirk. “Not tonight, no. That wasn’t the objective.” He tilted his head, one eyebrow quirking. “Come over here. No fresh blood on my hands, I promise.”

She made a disgruntled face at him and rolled her eyes, but padded the few feet between them, her knees inches from the bed as he sat up. “Why are you here tonight, Tommy?”

Elbows on his knees, hands dangling between them, he tipped back his chin and smiled broadly at her. “You know I don’t actually _need_ a reason, right?” She tensed, arms wrapping around her middle and one foot sliding backward, and he sighed, aggrieved. “Oh, don’t start. Can’t I want to see you?”

Felicity chewed at her lower lip, caught herself, and stopped. “You can, I just don’t know _why_.”

"I still like you, Felicity," Tommy said, as if she were being deliberately obtuse. "Just because I died, kidnapped you, and occasionally kill people doesn’t mean that changed."

She stared at him as if he was crazy, and he reached out and gently took hold of her forearm—not a punishing, controlling grip; a simple touch. “Come on, sit down. We were kinda friends before. Or, heading that way.”

Reluctantly, Felicity let him tug her to the bed and sat beside him, half a foot of bedspread separating them. “Yes, Tommy, we _were_ kind of friends. But then you died, kidnapped me, and sometimes _kill_ people.” She sighed, and he withdrew his hand. “And I still don’t know why I’m even _here_.”

"You know why you’re here," Tommy replied, his face settling into seriousness as he studied her eyes.

Felicity tossed her hands into the air, the dull slap of them hitting her thighs echoing to the tall ceiling. “I really don’t. You wanted to know about Sara, but I couldn’t tell you anything _useful_. Everything I knew about—about Oliver, or ARGUS, or _anything_ , you already knew.”

He reached out to slip a curl of her hair between his fingers, rubbing the strands together and tickling her neck with them; Felicity was getting more and more familiar with his odd, casually tactile behavior. “You knew more than you thought you did.”

Felicity turned her face away, grinding her teeth. She hated the idea that she had unwittingly given away something that might be used to hurt her friends.

"Felicity," Tommy’s fingers gently pinched her chin, nudging her back to face him. She glared at him sullenly, but all humor had left him and a shiver tripped along her spine. His expanded pupils made his eyes seem black and bottomless, and bewilderingly anything but empty. "You _know_ why you are here.”

"I don’t," she insisted, whispering.

Tommy’s hand slipped to cup her face, his thumb idly stroking her cheekbone. He held her gaze, uncompromising but not unsympathetic. “You’re here because Oliver needs you. You are an advantage, support, and guide that  _I_ need him  _not_ to have.”

Felicity bit her lips together and closed her eyes, helplessly angry at the tear that slipped her lashes, brushed away by another sweep of Tommy’s thumb. Swallowing hard, she rasped, “Why keep me here? Why waste the time, the resources?” She lifted her gaze to his again, not knowing what to do with the grim solemnity there. “Why don’t you just kill me?”

Tommy stared at her, lips thinned, brows dark slashes. The eyeliner only made his gaze more intense.

Suddenly, he smirked. He leaned forward, drawing a startled gasp from Felicity, and pressed a smacking kiss to her forehead before settling back, his hand withdrawing from her face at last. “Because you are excellent leverage or live bait, should the occasion arise. Because it’s fun to watch Oliver and his little team go nuts trying to find you.” Felicity bit down hard on the wild hope that wanted to arise at that tidbit of information. “Because it would be a pity to throw away your many impressive talents.”

He stood abruptly, starting towards the door, and Felicity shied away from the way her heart plummeted at the thought he was leaving so quickly.

Rapping his knuckles sharply on the door—signaling whoever stood guard outside—Tommy pressed his palm to the biometric panel beside it and paused, half-turning to look at Felicity one more time. “And because I don’t want to.”

Then the door opened, and he was gone.

Swallowing a riot of confusing thoughts and emotions, Felicity stared at the door for several moments after it closed and the electronic lock fell silent. Sighing heavily, she slumped onto her side, curling up on the mattress with her head at the foot of the bed.

Her fingers encountered an unfamiliar texture, and Felicity sat up, surprised to see Tommy’s suit jacket still where he’d haphazardly tossed it atop her blankets.

He’d left it behind.


	2. I Need to Move (I Need to Fight)

Adrenaline flushed through Felicity’s veins, sending her heart slamming into her sternum and making her hands shake as she snatched the suit jacket up and hauled it into her lap.

Breast pocket—empty, not even a pocket square.

Left and right bottom pockets—lint, crumpled gum wrapper _—condom,_  how fucking wonderful.

Inside breast pocket—a pack of cards?

Hesitating, Felicity slipped open the cardboard flap on the box of cards, wondering if something had changed, if she had been wrong—right, wrong,  _right_?—about Tommy after all, if he was slipping her a weapon, a message, a tool,  _anything_.

It looked like… just cards.

“Come on, Tommy,” she whispered, lips trembling, blinking back tears. “Please, please,  _please_.”

She upended the cards on the bedspread spreading them around, checking each one individually—front, back, hell, even the edge—and then checked inside the box again. Empty.

She unsealed the cardboard flaps and pulled the box apart, just in case. The inside was blank white cardboard. It was just… a generic pack of playing cards.

Felicity stared at the mess on her bed, eyebrows screwing together, breath coming faster. “No.  _No_.”

She pulled her lower lip between her teeth, biting down in her anger til she tasted blood, picked up the jacket from her lap and raised onto her knees.

Muttering a constant litany of curses, she shook the jacket—upside down, by the shoulders, inside out—and then spread it flat on the bed, running her palms over it smoothly to feel for—anything, any irregularities. Anything that might be sewn into the seams or lining.

_ Anything _ .

There was… nothing. Nothing at all.

Chest heaving, Felicity collapsed back onto her heels, fingers clenched tight and shaking on the hem of Tommy’s—considerably more wrinkled, now—suit jacket. She sucked in great, shuddering breaths, vision blurring.

He just forgot his jacket.

It wasn’t a message, or a sign, or a gift.

He just… forgot it. It was just a jacket.

Two tears spilled over at the same time, tracing fire over cheeks gone cool, the blood drained from her face with that last ounce of hope.

Suddenly, she exploded up from the mattress with a rough cry, throwing the jacket down on the floor and striding over to her table. She swept her arm across the surface, dumping used pages and her sheaf of blank paper, her pencils, to the carpet.

Her blood hummed in her ears, rushing, rushing, and she just wanted to destroy something,  _wreck_  something like  _everything_ in her life had been wrecked.

She shoved at the table, pulled at its edge—it didn’t move. She pushed at the chair, yanked on the back— _nothing_.

She knew it was all bolted down, but she didn’t  _care_. She was  _so angry_.

And it didn’t matter.

Her palms were bruised, knuckles scraped, two of her fingernails broken—and all she had to show for it was a mess on the bed and the floor.

Felicity stood in the center of it, surveying her pathetic wreckage, and finally, finally choked out a sob. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the floor, tears running unchecked down her face as she stared at that  _goddamn_  jacket, crumpled in a heap.

What did it matter? What did  _any of it_  mean? He didn’t want to kill her, he wanted to keep her. He wasn’t going to help her, but he went out of his way not to hurt her.

It was too much. Nothing made sense and there was  _nothing_  to hold on to.

Felicity folded over and pressed her face to the rough carpet, one palm flattened against her mouth to muffle her as she cried.

Gasping in wet, desperate breaths, she found herself muttering, “They’re looking for me. They’re still looking for me.”

But she knew, deep in the weight of her bones, they wouldn’t find her.

She lay there for long minutes, hopelessness slowly seeping through her skin, until the tears ran out and her muscles got stiff.

Sore and drained, she sat up, taking in the detritus of her—her tantrum.

And then she rose to her feet, gathered the papers on the floor into two separate stacks—blank and used—and neatly lined up her three mechanical pencils between them. Then she moved to the bed, collecting the playing cards into a stack, expertly shuffled, and placed the deck beside her papers on the table.

Gathering the last remaining detritus from Tommy’s pockets, she put the condom and the gum wrapper back where she found them, and then, straightening the lines of the familiarly expensive jacket, she hung it on her chair.

Just like that, her rage and despair were neatened away.

Feeling as weary as she had at the end of that long night they put Slade Wilson in handcuffs, Felicity pulled back the covers of her bed and climbed beneath, curling around the hurt in her gut and staring at the bland, white wall.

Just in time.

As scheduled, the warning tone sounded overhead, and seconds later the lights went out, plunging Felicity into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I am impatient and inspired.


	3. I Don't Stand a Chance (In These Four Walls)

Two nights passed before Felicity saw Tommy again.

His visits were irregular and unpredictable, and when he didn’t return for his jacket the next night, Felicity resolutely put him out of her mind.

She took to playing solitaire with the deck of cards, cards flipping and shuffling in rapid, hypnotic rhythm familiar to her as childhood. When the room’s ambient temperature dipped just below comfort level for the flimsy clothes she was provided, she shrugged on Tommy’s suit jacket, rolling back the cuffs of the sleeves over her wrists.

It sagged around her slender shoulders, swallowing her small frame, the hem falling past her hips to cover the tops of her thighs. She looked ridiculous, standing in the man’s jacket in front of the small, thin Plexiglass bathroom mirror as she changed out her contacts in the morning.

Like a helpless child.

Felicity firmed up her jaw, turned away from her reflection, and moved back into the main area of her room—her cell.

She spent the next few hours building card houses on the table and blowing them down with sharp huffs of breath.

Her fingers itched for the paper and pencils still so neatly stacked in their corner of the table, but she was afraid to write down anything that mattered—program coding, her limited observations of her captivity, longing letters home—for fear it could be twisted and used against her or her friends.

When the restless buzzing in her limbs became too much to sit still, she put away the deck, shed Tommy’s jacket, and moved to the small clear space in the middle of the little room, stretching and falling into the familiar patterns of yoga. She held a pose focused on balance, and silently wished she’d followed Sara’s advice to take up Tai Chi.

She tried to clear her mind of everything but the next form to mold her body into, with limited success. Her concentration broke when the small slat at the bottom of the wall by the door slid open and her lunch tray was pushed through.

She forced herself to pick at the sandwich, chips, and apple slices—all her food could always be eaten without utensils—reminding herself that starvation would serve her no good. The meal kept uneasy company with the leaden ball of anger and frustrated helplessness that weighted down her stomach.

After she reluctantly returned her empty tray through the waiting, open slot thirty minutes later, Felicity sat on the bed and tried to meditate. Stubbornly, her mind circled around Oliver, Diggle, Sara, Starling City—and Tommy.

Heaving a growl-edged sigh, she pushed off of the mattress and returned to her deck of cards.

Hours later, she was sat on the floor with her back against the bed, swimming in the suit jacket as she won yet another mindless game of solitaire.

At the door, electronic beeping drew her chin up sharply, attracting her gaze. She waited, tense, and wondered faintly why she could always hear the lock disengaging but never any movement or exchanged words just outside.

The door opened and in walked Tommy, far steadier than the last time and dressed with eerie similarity. The dark, fitted slacks might even be the same ones, and the motorcycle boots appeared to be identical. The shirt this time, however, was a deep red, and he carried no jacket.

His eyes swept over the room before finding her on the floor, his brows climbing his forehead at the sight of her, cross-legged on the carpet and buried in his suit jacket. “No, no, don’t get up.”

Felicity snorted, running her eyes over him—eyeliner again, shirt once more open halfway down his chest, hair rakishly flopping over his forehead—before turning her attention back to her cards. “I won’t.”

Tommy huffed a little breath, amused, and stood on the other side of her solitaire game. “So that’s what happened to that jacket.” Felicity’s fingers hesitated as she lay down a card, shoulders tensing under the baggy fabric. Tommy eyed the top of her head, smirking. “Looks better on you anyways.”

Felicity’s chin came up, the expression on her face concentratedly unimpressed. “Did you just drop a line on me?”

Tommy shrugged, then lowered himself to sit on the floor opposite her. “Is it a line if it’s true?”

She pursed her lips, staring him dead in the eye. “Yup. Still a line.”

Tommy rolled his eyes and leaned forward, pinching the rolled up sleeve of her left arm between thumb and forefingers. “Oh, well, in  _that_  case. I can always take it back.”

Her jaw squared and she jerked away, shrinking back against the side of the bed with a defiant glare that challenged him to come and take it off her back. Tommy sighed. “Relax, Felicity. Keep it. Feels chilly in here anyways.”

She stared at him, hesitant, then slowly relaxed back towards her cards. “I’m keeping the cards, too.”

Tommy bit down on a smile, eyebrows rising again. She was awfully bossy for someone at her disadvantage, “Oh, are you.”

She sat still, regarding him seriously, watchfully. “You won’t let me go, but you aren’t interrogating me or torturing me or whatever other activities kidnappers usually get up to. I’m obviously not allowed to have any kind of electronics, and my  _suite_  isn’t exactly stocked with an expansive library. Unless you’re trying to slowly murder me by boredom, I am  _keeping the cards_.”

Tommy shrugged one shoulder, leaning back on one arm and bracing the other on a bent knee. “Fine with me. You’re not exactly Remy Lebeau, so I’m not especially concerned about what mayhem you might wreak with a deck of playing cards.”

Surprise and curiosity flickered across Felicity’s face at the comic book reference, but she didn’t pursue the subject. Her lips—pale, naked pink—pressed together, eyes narrowing slightly. “You would be if you were sitting across from me at a poker table.”

That startled a laugh out of him, and he sat forward again, grinning. “I’ll make sure to never bet you anything I’m not prepared to lose.” Dropping his eyes to the playing cards, he licked his lips. “Why don’t we play something now?”

Felicity raised a brow skeptically. “For what?” She lifted an arm and gestured expansively at the tiny room with its bolted in place furniture, blank walls, and open-doorway bathroom-closet. “My many valuable possessions?” She scoffed lightly. “Or you could try to get back the contents of your pockets, I guess, though I doubt you’re missing the gum wrapper and I sincerely hope that wasn’t your only condom in all the world.”

Tommy’s eyebrows climbed slowly, his mouth spreading in a warm, wolfish grin. “I left a  _condom_  in there, did I?”

She reddened, arm dropping into her lap and gaze skittering away from his, teasing and intent on her face. “You may have noticed I have a really horrible habit of saying things in the worst possible way.”

Tommy’s smile shrank slightly, but didn’t dim. “I remember. You accidentally complimented my eyes  _and_  my ass when we met.” Her flush deepened, and he took pity on her. “I wasn’t thinking we’d necessarily need to play  _for_  anything. We could play Go Fish, or War.”

Her color slowly fading back to normal, he watched her go very still. “War,” she murmured, lifting blue eyes to blue eyes. “Seems like a good game for you and me.”

Tommy’s expression lost several shades of humor, his grin acquiring a hard, bitter edge. “War it is.”


	4. See Me Bare My Teeth For You (Who Are You)

Tonight they played Go Fish.

"Do you have any threes?"

Felicity shook her head and Tommy shrugged, reaching for the deck.

She eyed him watchfully—dressed again like he’d been out at a nightclub, complete with eyeliner, tight slacks, and rich blue button-down shirt open to show his dark chest hair—lips pressing together as she mustered her calm and courage.

Tommy looked at the card he’d drawn, pushing his mouth to one side in dissatisfaction, and shuffled it into his hand.

"Why don’t you ever ask about her?"

Ever so slightly, Tommy stiffened, his relaxed slouch tightening. Slowly, he lifted his eyes to Felicity’s. There was nothing in them for her, no warning, no curiosity. “I would have thought you’d gotten tired of my questions about Sara.”

Felicity furtively licked her lips, back against the side of the bed, knees up and together to rest her cards against. “You know that’s not the Lance sister I mean.”

Tommy stared at her, and it chilled her, how he could look so  _threateningly_  empty.

Breathing in carefully, measuredly, Felicity forged on. “I’ve been here for weeks now and you haven’t asked me a single question about Laurel, and it doesn’t make any sense. You love her. You  _died_  for her.” Growing agitated, she set her cards face-down to the side, one foot slipping beneath her as she leaned forward. “I don’t buy for a second that you don’t care about her anymore. Why wouldn’t you  _ask me_  about her?”

Tommy continued to stare at her—she wasn’t sure he’d blinked once since she’d denied his deflection—and a muscle in his jaw jumped slightly.

Felicity’s stomach tightened, fear stirring in her suddenly, belatedly. Her fingernails scraped the thin carpet, and she didn’t move.

His breath escaped his nostrils in a short puff, and he blinked. Surprising her, he said, “I will always care about Laurel. Like you said. I died for her. You don’t stop caring about someone you loved that deeply, not even after death.” He shook his head slightly, his lips curling into a hard, bitter smirk. “No matter what you become.”

Felicity went after the admission like a bulldog. “Then why don’t you ever  _ask_  about her? About how she handled losing you? About what she’s been up to? If she’s moved on?” She was being cruel, and she didn’t give a damn. “Why haven’t you asked if she and Oliver are together again?”

Tommy barked a short, derisive laugh. “Like  _that’s_  ever happening again.” He bared his teeth in a grin and leaned forward just an inch, that warning that had been missing in his eyes flashing like neon now. “Why would I ask you questions I already know the answers to, Felicity?”

She ground her teeth together. So it was as she’d thought, then; he had kept tabs on them all, stayed intimately informed. It didn’t make anything make more sense, but it was worth confirming. “That’s the only kind of question you’ve asked me  _since I_ _got_ _here_. So why not ask me about Laurel’s self-destructive grief? Why not ask me about how you dying hit her  _so hard_  she crawled into a bottle with a handful of pills and lashed out at everyone who cared about her? Why don’t we talk about how you could have stopped all of that from happening by  _being_ _alive_?”

Felicity planted both hands on the floor, leaning forward, jaw set and eyes blazing. “Were you watching the whole time? Were you watching as she drank herself into a corner?” Tommy’s face got colder and sharper as she spoke, but she couldn’t stop, hurling questions at him like rocks. “Did you think about showing up at her apartment, or did you just decide she was getting what she deserved because she screwed your best friend the night before you died?”

He surged forward, cards scattering under his hands. Felicity threw herself back, but there was nowhere to  _go_ , and her shoulder blades bit hard against the bedrail at the same instant Tommy crashed into her, his hand closing around her jaw.

His knees planted to either side of her thighs and he loomed close over her, cold and immovable as her hands grabbed at his wrist. “What were you trying to accomplish tonight, Felicity?” His voice was so calm. “Were you trying to make me lose my temper? Did you want me to hurt you?”

The hand on her face, holding tight but not bruising, slid down, fingers circling her throat, loose but full of promise. “What exactly were you trying to provoke?” Felicity jerked her leg, meaning to crash her knee between his legs, but he reached down with his free hand and caught it, never breaking eye contact. “Did you just want a  _fight_?”

Felicity’s lips skinned back from her teeth and she glared heatedly up at him, her pulse hammering under his thumb, his face inches away. “I wanted to know if you’re even still  _you_. I wanted to know if Tommy Merlyn is  _still_ _dead_.”

He smirked at her, mouth the hard curve of a knife-edge. Getting even more in her face, he stared her in the eyes, his voice finally taking on heat, emotion, as he answered, “Is that what you  _want_  Felicity? Were you hoping the guy you knew, Oliver’s best friend, Laurel’s boyfriend, that he was really gone? That I’m just some  _monster_  wearing the hollowed-out shell?”

Tommy shook her, the back of her head bouncing against the side of the mattress. “ _Tough shit_. It’s still me. You don’t get to pretty this up and compartmentalize it.” He raked his eyes over her face, sneered. “You want to believe that if I was really still  _Tommy_ , I wouldn’t hurt you, I wouldn’t keep you here, I would be  _soft_  and vulnerable and desperate to hear about my ex-girlfriend. What do you want me to do,  _cry_? You want me to be sorry about Laurel? About Oliver? About  _you_?”

Felicity stared at him, her knuckles whitening around his wrist; this had spiraled so far out of her meager control, what little pathetic plan she had scraped up blown away by her crazy, desperate  _need_  for him to— “I want you to still be human.”

He tossed his head with a cracking, biting laugh. “I  _am_ , Felicity.” He looked her over, seemed to master himself, and eased some space between them. “You need to get over this idea that people can’t be human and monsters at the same time. That good people you liked don’t have it in them to be  _monstrous_.” He shook his head at her, let go of her neck and stood. He looked pityingly down at her. “Stop looking for some flash of the ‘old me’ to appeal to. It’s going to make our time together a lot more annoying than it needs to be. The new me is the old me is the  _only_  me there is.”

Sighing, he offered her a hand to help her stand. Staring at him still, Felicity scooted sideways, putting more distance between them. Hitching an elbow atop the mattress, she leveraged herself up slowly, keeping her eyes on Tommy.

He smirked and dropped his hand. “You’ve gotten a little too comfortable with me, Felicity. I’ve been friendly, I’ve even been kind. I don’t plan to stop that.” His smirk collapsed, and he regarded her seriously. “But I am dangerous, to you, specifically. Don’t forget again.”

He looked at the mess of their game on the floor, at her, standing shaking and quiet by the bed, shook his head, and left.


	5. This Is War (but baby lets be friends for just a little while)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The Longing Bones" and "Midnight Thunder" were invented on the spot. "The Blue Sword" however is by Robin McKinley and an excellent book.

He brought her books.

"To prevent that death-by-boredom you were so worried about." He set a tall stack of paperbacks on her table, removing the top half and setting them beside the others. "I didn’t really know what you’d be into, so there’s kind of a bunch of stuff." He turned and looked at her, leaning back against the table’s edge. "Mysteries, sci-fi, fantasy, thrillers." His eyebrows waggled, chin dipping. "Romance."

Felicity sat cross-legged on the bed as she had when he entered, fingers stilled on another game of solitaire. She raised an eyebrow at him, but stayed quiet.

It had been three days since the Laurel confrontation, and this was the first she’d seen of him since then. Evidently he intended to carry on as if nothing of note had occurred.

"C’mon, Felicity, what tickles your fancy?" He reached behind him and grabbed three of the novels, looking at covers and titles and flipping to skim the summaries on the backs. " _The Blue Sword_? Ooh, how relevant. A woman is kidnapped by a mysterious desert-dwelling people and becomes a magical hero.”

Felicity pursed her lips together and said nothing.

Tommy flicked his eyes at her over the cover, shrugged, and set the book aside. “What about  _The Longing Bones_?” He read the summary and paraphrased, “An archaeologist finds human remains at her dig that she’s sure are recent murder victims, but no one seems to believe her. Some kind of conspiracy. Killer starts targeting her… hot young law enforcement officer blows off the rules and promises to protect her… hmm, probably has sex. Might be good?”

He raised his eyebrows enticingly, smiling, and wiggled the book in Felicity’s direction. She rolled her eyes and leaned back on her hands, head falling to the side, unimpressed.

He clucked his tongue and put the book down, looking at the last one in his hands and unfurling a slow, wicked grin. “Oh, this one  _definitely_  has sex in it.”

He turned the book, flashing her the cover—an airbrushed, ripped male model in nothing but low-slung jeans clutched at a gorgeous, fit young woman in a short, torn dress, her hand splayed across his abs as they stared at each other hotly—and skimming the back. “ _Midnight Thunder_  sounds pretty hot, really.”

Felicity snorted, and Tommy’s grin spread wider. “No, no I think  _this_  is the one. Let’s read an excerpt, shall we?”

Felicity made a face at him, but he opened the book undeterred, thumb flipping to a spot roughly in the middle. His eyes quickly ran over the page, and he smirked, clearing his throat.

"Colin gaped at Emily’s lush body, bare to him in the moonlight. He drank in the wide curves of her generous hips, her rosy-tipped breasts swelling on her  _heaving_ chest as she stared at him. Slowly, deliberately, she parted her creamy thighs for him, sliding her own hand down her stomach as she wet her lips. ‘Colin,’ she purred  _wantonly_ , ‘Take me, now,  _please_.’”

"Ugh," Felicity scoffed, giving in. "Okay, you can stop now."

Tommy just grinned wider, pushing off from the table and stepping towards her as he read, “Colin’s erect, throbbing member twitched in his jeans, stirred to almost  _uncontrollable_  passion at the decadent sight of Emily spread open on the bed,  _inviting_  him. ‘Oh, Emily,’ he groaned, ‘I want to  _make love_  to you like you deserve, to  _take you hard_ , all night, through the  _morning_ —’”

"Stop!" Felicity groaned, tossing an ineffectual playing card at him. It spun and fluttered, the jack of clubs landing face up some inches from Tommy’s boots.

He stepped over it, now only a couple of feet from the bed where she sat. “‘I want to spend tomorrow between your thighs,  _tasting_  you—’” Tommy’s eyebrows shot up, the corners of his mouth pulling down in an appreciative shrug. “Wow, okay, get it, Colin.”

He looked up from the book to nod at Felicity. “I can go on, in a couple of paragraphs he starts going down on her and there are words like  _gushing_  and  _sweet juices_  and a few really colorful euphemisms I haven’t seen before—”

Felicity, having had enough, climbed off the bed and stood in front of him, reaching for the book. “No, I think that’s more than— _hey_!”

Grinning, Tommy held the book over her head, well out of her flat-footed reach. “But  _Felicity,_  what if I want to read you a  _story_.”

She hopped for the book, grimacing at the thought of him rhapsodizing any more of the purple prose at her. “Ugh, why are you so  _tall_.”

"Because I ate all of my veggies and drank my milk. Now, shall we discuss the apparently  _phenomenal_  powers of Colin’s tongue? Seems Emily cannot get enough of it. ‘Oh,  _Colin_!’ she cried.” Tommy read from the book held high over his head, pitching his voice higher. “‘Yes, again! I’m  _so close_! I want you  _inside me_ —’”

Felicity growled in annoyance, giving up on taking the book from him, and clapped both her hands over his mouth. His eyebrows shot up in surprise, his muffled laughter puffing warm against her fingers.

Felicity glared at him, pressing her palms harder against his cheeks. “If you like the book so much, take it with you and read it for  _your_  bedtime story—oh my god!”

She jerked her hands off his face, stepping back and stumbling on her own feet. The backs of her knees hit the bed and she sat down hard on it, nose wrinkled and lips parted, hands held in front of her. “ _You_ _licked_ _me_.”

He laughed, blue eyes warm and twinkling—no eyeliner making them larger and brighter today—and dropped his arms, the book clutched in his left hand by his side. “You’re gonna have to do better than that if you want to shut me up next time, Smoak.”

She scowled at him, wiping her palms on the legs of her yoga pants. “If you were wearing a tie I could use it to  _gag_  you, but you always have your shirts halfway open like some sort of male escort—”

She bit her words off with clicking teeth, a flush staining her cheeks and widening Tommy’s grin.

"Kinky. But I’ll have you know the target happens to like this look." He smirked at her, turning to toss  _Midnight Thunder_ onto the table with the other books, no longer in neat stacks.

Felicity sobered at his casual mention of his  _target_ , and she wondered if these odd, light moments between them was him finessing her like he did whoever he kept putting on eyeliner for. She wondered if everything that happened in this room was another job for him, and how much of it she had already fallen for, if any of it at all was genuine.

She remembered she was a prisoner, and that likely every word, every choice he made, was in the name of manipulating her to some unknown end.

It wasn’t that she ever  _forgot_  she was here entirely against her will, isolated and confined. But at times, for whole, surreal seconds, Tommy interacted with her as if they were merely two people and it put a strange, soft haze around the wrongness of her circumstances. Even despite the harsh, warning violence of their last encounter.

She would have to be more vigilant against relaxing her guard, against sympathizing with and liking him.

Exactly as he had explicitly reminded her last time.

She was silent and grave-faced, and Tommy’s own smile dimmed considerably as he watched her. Drawing in a deep, almost resigned breath, he said, “I can’t stay. I have to go put on my makeup and be unbearably charming elsewhere, but I wanted to make sure you had other entertainment for the night.”

He glanced again at the books, then at her, and gave her a tight, rueful smile. “Enjoy.”

She said nothing as he walked out.


	6. Some of Them Want to Use You (Some of Them Want to Be Used by You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shift threatens, and is averted—for now.

It was late when he came through the door.

Late enough that the lights had gone off at their customary time, and so Felicity lay on the bed where she had fallen asleep, atop the covers, one hand still curled around the pages of  _The Longing Bones_.

She had been exhausted from poor sleep, and when the lights raised to a dim glow with Tommy’s entrance, Felicity was slow to wake.

Tommy stifled a giggle as he shut the door behind him, swallowing the laughter with a snort. Eyebrows pulling together, Felicity blinked her eyes open and watched him lope, grinning, the short distance to her bed.

She lifted her head from the pillow just as he flopped onto the mattress, just missing sitting on her toes where she was curled. His shoulders rested against the wall as he slouched, and he lolled his head to look at her, smiling serenely.

Felicity leveraged up onto one elbow, wary and confused. He had never visited her after lights-out before. “Tommy?” Her voice was sleep-rasped, and she licked her lips. His eyes lazily tracked the motion, and she squinted through the low lighting and her lack of contacts. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged. “Felt like it.” He spread his smile wider in a rakish grin. “Maybe I missed you.”

She snorted and sat up, leaning forward to look at him more clearly. His posture was loose, relaxed, his grin almost sloppy—and his eyes drowning in pupil. “You’re clearly on something.”

He lifted one shoulder and nodded a little too vigorously. “Yup,” the p popped. “She insisted on a stronger dose this time. I am feeling…  _very_  good.”

Felicity raised a skeptical brow and ruthlessly quashed a flush of concern for him. Whoever this woman was, she was his target, which meant in one way or another she was his victim; Felicity couldn’t afford to feel sorry for the things he had to do to himself to cozy up to his mark. “I can tell.”

Tommy just smiled beatifically. “Still don’t know what this shit is, but it’s  _good_. Everything sounds like an  _excellent_  idea and the world is about ten times more fun. Doesn’t let down hard, either.” He craned his neck, gaze slipping to the mattress beside her. “Ooh, you were  _reading_! Was it the sexy sex book?”

Flushing helplessly—he’d been right about predicting the murder mystery would have some sex in it, and she’d just gotten to a surprisingly explicit scene when the lights had gone out—Felicity tried to nonchalantly shuffle the paperback behind her.

Tommy’s eyes snapped up to her face, eyebrows rising and grin going wide. “Oh, hoho, what have we  _here_!”

He shot up and tried to reach around her for the book, and she instinctively moved to block him. His chest crashed against hers, one of his hands bracing on her stomach as his other arm snaked behind her back, snatching for the book.

His weight bore her a little further back so that she was more reclined than sitting, and his chuckle of victory rumbled against her chest as he peered over her shoulder and laid his fingers on the novel’s spine.

Felicity froze, sucking in and holding a sharp breath. Previously, he’d almost exclusively been this physically near her in moments of violent hostility, and it made her blood pound in her ears, elbows lock and spine freeze.

Tommy’s face was very close as he realized the position they were in. He turned his head to look at her, watching him with wide eyes and bitten-together lips. His eyes, large and dark and circled in eyeliner, ticked down her face, hesitated on her mouth, and slid to his hand on her stomach.

She watched him swallow, her muscles jumping under his fingers as they flexed against the thin cloth of her tank top.

Tommy dragged his gaze back up to hers, his face emptied of its amusement, a hint of hunger in his expression lifting the small hairs on Felicity’s skin.

"I should go."

"Why?" Felicity squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head infinitesimally, instantly wishing she could claw the word back into her mouth.  _Why_  had she asked that?

Tommy’s brows arched up in surprise, and a strange smirk curled on his lips, a breathy laugh puffing against her chin. His lashes fluttered down, lower lip pulling through his teeth as his thumb swept twice above her navel, before his hand withdrew and he began to lean back. “Because I’m  _very_  high, and horny.” He sat back, watching her inscrutably as she remained frozen, eyes large and fixed on him. “And because you’re afraid of me.”

Sighing, he stood very suddenly, spinning on his heel with a flourish and smiling wryly down on her as she sat up fully. “You should be.”

He left, and the room plunged into darkness again.

Felicity stared hard in the direction of the door, brows pulled down and lips frowning. A terrible, stupid idea nibbled at her thoughts, and she shoved it away, slamming it into a box and locking the lid.

Slowly, she eased back down on the bed, shoving the novel under her pillow and scooting until her back curved against the cool wall.

She lay awake most of the rest of that night, staring through the dark at the door.


	7. Strong Hold on My Poor Soul (You Come Around, You Come After Me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy and Felicity play a dangerous game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is considerably longer than the others, and to warn any who may need it, contains mentions of past abuse.

Three nights, Felicity slept feather-light, startling awake at the slightest sound in the dark—always as alone as a prisoner could be.

The fourth day, Tommy showed up, cheerful and charming. He didn’t bring up his awkward nocturnal visit, and neither did she. For the next four days, they played cards, stalked the dance around questions and conversation, and on one memorable occasion, he arrived while she was reading. He tendered her a genial greeting and picked up a book from her table: the romance he’d teased her with before. He settled in the chair, crossed his ankles on the tabletop, and settled back to read.

Felicity spent several minutes watching him. He looked tired, his club costume rumpled, with what she was sure was a lipstick stain on the inside collar of his pale lavender shirt, and she suspected he hadn’t slept, and came here straight from his… job. He ignored her, seemingly engrossed in his book.

Felicity slowly, warily returned her attention to her own story, and after a little while, fell into the mystery for some time. It was actually quite interesting, and the relationship between the archeologist and the cop fascinating.

It must have been a couple of hours before Felicity shifted with a grimace, her legs fallen asleep beneath her. She set her book open-face down on the bed, closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose, blinking her contacts back into place.

When she looked up, Tommy was asleep in the chair, his hand still holding the romance novel open high against his stomach. His chin slumped towards his chest, and she could hear him breathing a soft, even rhythm through parted lips.

She watched him, unguarded, and her heart squeezed. He looked vulnerable, his face pale and lashes stark crescents, eyeliner smudged along bruised-looking lids.

He looked young; he looked like  _Tommy_. And worse, pale as he was, still as he was, if she couldn’t  _see_  him breathing… he looked all too like the waxy-cheeked corpse she’d believed long-buried. She wondered if his casket lay empty beneath the turf of Starling Hallows Cemetery, or if Oliver had red-eyed shouldered some other’s body to his best friend’s grave.

She wished he’d stayed under the ground—guiltily wished it back—angrily repeated the wish, then swallowed it all into a knot of uncertainty. How badly would it break Oliver to regain another friend thought lost, only to have lost him differently after all? Could Oliver handle the fear, the confusion, the relief and hope and  _betrayal_  of discovering Tommy was alive—and the one who’d snatched Felicity from her own home in the dark of night? Who kept her in a stark white  _hole_  for the sake of  _hurting_  Oliver somehow?

She didn’t know. She didn’t know if she did or didn’t want to find out what it would do to Oliver.

She wanted to be free of this fucking  _prison_ —but if  _she_  struggled this badly with what Tommy had become, how much more would Oliver shatter? How much more  _could_  he break before he was, finally, with  _finality_ , broken?

Felicity stared at Tommy, slumped just feet away, vulnerable… and felt a cold sickle of ruthless curiosity slide into her guts. He’d let his guard down, fallen asleep as if he wasn’t worried about her at all.

Sure, she was locked in with him. Certainly, he’d physically overpowered her enough times to prove her skills were simply not up to the challenge.  _Yes_ _,_  there were guards beyond her door who would halt any escape attempt on the threshold.

But she found herself on her feet, padding bare, silent soles across the carpet towards him, hands open at her sides—and she didn’t know what she was going to do when she reached him. Shake him awake?

Or take hold of his chin and the back of his head and hope she could get enough torque to snap his neck?

When she stood less than a foot from him and lifted a hand, she still wasn’t sure how the motion would end.

It was a moot question.

Before her fingers closed the final inches to contact, Tommy sucked in a sudden sharp breath, his hand dropping the book to the floor and flashing up, locking hard around her wrist. His chin came up and his eyes flew open, his stare wide and hard and  _cold_ , like he could see what she’d been contemplating all over her face.

They stood there, eyes locked, his fingers tight around the small bones of her wrist, both of them breathing quickly.

Slowly, his grip eased and he lowered her hand, but didn’t release it. He pulled in one long, deep, shuddering breath, and on the exhale said, “Felicity.”

She didn’t understand what rode behind her name, but it was more than just a word in his mouth.

Licking dry lips, she answered, “You fell asleep.”

Finally, Tommy blinked. With slow deliberation, he unwrapped one finger at a time from her wrist, and let her go. Sitting up, he inhaled. “Seems I did. I am apparently not excellent company today.”

Felicity said nothing. Loudly.

_You are only excellent company when I forget you are my jailor. Why are you so tired? What are you after from your target? What is she demanding of you that you are so worn? Will you kill her? Why do you do any of this?_

She stepped back.

Eyeing her coolly, Tommy bent and picked up the fallen romance novel, then unfolded to his feet. “I think I’m going to call it a day. Mind if I borrow this?”

Felicity arched an eyebrow at the book in his raised hand and lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

Tommy smirked wryly, tapped the book on his thigh, and turned to the door.

Felicity stood her ground as he laid his hand on the biometric panel on the wall, and as the door popped open with a quiet beep, Felicity breathed in.

"Tommy."

He stopped, hand curled around the doorknob. After a moment, he looked at her over his shoulder, brow quirked curiously.

Felicity met his gaze solemnly. “Why did you fall asleep?”

He held her gaze a moment more, then left without answering.

—

When he arrived the next day, he wasn’t dressed in club attire, but instead again in the almost-military black fatigues he’d worn her first week.

Felicity stared at him as he stood by the door, frozen mid-yoga pose. She was unexpectedly taken aback by the pulse-pounding  _threat_  associated with those clothes. Her breath came faster, a tremble vibrated through her limbs, destabilizing her balance, and she licked her lips, stiffly lowering her left foot to the floor and folding her arms across her stomach.

Tommy raised an eyebrow and held up one hand as if to show he was harmless.

She knew better, but the motion did draw her attention to the small, gray box cradled in the crook of his right arm. Her brow creased and she frowned, backing up until her butt hit the edge of the table. She moved slowly, neither wanting to cause alarm or  _appear_  alarmed.

Lips curling slightly, Tommy lifted the box towards her. “Scrounged up a box of dominoes. Thought we’d play something different. Floor or table?”

Felicity blinked several times, shifting her flight-or-fight state of mind into something watchful and waiting instead. Lifting her brows, she frowned at the box. “Dominoes?” Her nose wrinkled. “Old men used to play that around little tables outside our community center. How do you even know how to play?”

His smile was bland, even if his eyes did crinkle at the corners. “You pick up things, here and there.”

"Right," Felicity drawled. Sighing, she gestured sweepingly at the floor. "There’s only one chair."

Tommy held up a finger and tilted his head, conceding. “Ah. I hadn’t considered that. Floor it is.”

Felicity moved to sit against the side of the bed, her legs folded together. Tommy lowered himself across from her, legs stretching long and opening a wide arch. Unsnapping a flap on the side of the box, he pulled back the lid and overturned the contents, spilling several dozen thick, white, hard plastic dominoes with multicolored dots out onto the carpet.

Tommy began turning all the dominoes facedown, and Felicity reached out to those closest to her to help.

"So, where did  _you_  learn to play dominoes? I assume you do know how,” Tommy asked, eyes still on the tiles.

Felicity glanced up at him, teeth clenched, jaw flexing. After a moment, she exhaled from her nose and decided to trade question for question. “From the old men at the community center. Why are you in your—fatigues, or whatever, today?”

He sat up, fingers pulling away from the dominoes, and regarded her speculatively. “Didn’t have anywhere I needed to be today. Besides, it was time to do laundry.” Narrowing his eyes, he ran his gaze down her bare arms, and Felicity tried not to break out in gooseflesh under the scrutiny. She failed. “Whatever happened to that jacket I left here, anyways? I haven’t seen it in a while.”

She pursed her lips together, dropping his gaze and reaching out to start picking up random tiles and setting them in a pile by her ankles. “I haven’t seen it either. They took it last time they came and got  _my_  laundry. It didn’t come back.” She nibbled at the inside of her lower lip. “Of course, for all I know,  _none_  of those clothes did. Everything I wear is the same. They could have burned everything that was dirty and brought me new, identical yoga pants and spaghetti strap shirts.”

Her eyebrows rose with the lilt of her sarcasm, and Tommy snorted, smirking.

"That would be absurdly wasteful." His smile shrank, as he lowered his eyes to the pool of dominoes between them and selected his own fifteen tiles. "I’ll have to see if I can find the jacket." His eyes lifted to hers under his brows. "You want it back if I do?"

Felicity startled at the offer, hesitated, and shrugged one shoulder.

Tommy smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He lined his dominoes up in neat rows like Felicity’s, scanning and rearranging. “You have the double twelves?”

Felicity selected the tile in question from the first line of her ranks and waggled it. Tommy nodded and pushed the remaining tiles in the center into two pools, one closer to him and the other on Felicity’s side. Felicity set the gray-dotted double twelves face-up in the center of the space cleared between them, then placed a domino with a twelve on one side and seven pink dots on the other half to one side of the doubles.

"This will be the Mexican train." She looked up at him, brows arching. "You play by Mexican train rules?"

Tommy nodded. “I’m familiar.” He reached into his pocket and set a dime on the twelve/seven tile, then selected a twelve/four from his own dominoes to begin his own train. “Did you spend a lot of time at the community center in Vegas?”

Felicity’s fingers hovered over her tiles at his obvious knowledge of where she grew up, but she shook herself from the surprise. Of course he knew. It wasn’t exactly a guarded secret, and it would be ridiculous to expect the League of Assassins hadn’t done even the most basic of background homework on her before stealing her from her life.

Why Tommy would want to know, she couldn’t fathom, but he’d clearly caught on to her quid pro quo plan, and if innocuous questions about her childhood were his gambit, she could handle that.

Selecting a twelve/ten to start her own train, Felicity finally nodded. “It was a safe place to be after school. Is your  _job_  finished? Or are you just taking a day off?”

Tommy smirked at her, adding a double-four set sideways on his train and a seven/one to the Mexican train. “I am enjoying a brief reprieve. What about home  _wasn’t_  safe after school that the community center  _was_?”

Felicity inhaled sharply and tucked her lips between her teeth, lashes momentarily fluttering closed. When she lifted her gaze to his, steady and patient, she silently cursed her careless phrasing. Carefully considering her answer, she turned her attention to her dominoes and added a ten/six to her train. “That depends on the year. If this is your day off, why are you spending it here? Do they not let you out without a leash?”

Tommy raised an eyebrow at her barbed response, and for a moment she thought he would call her on asking two questions, but he let it go with a long exhale, placing a domino on the Mexican train. “I work here, but I also live here. And I’ve been out nearly every night for the past two weeks. Sometimes it’s good to stay home.” Felicity stared at him, obviously aghast at the concept of this  _prison_  being anyone’s  _home_. He shrugged at her. “And I’ve told you, I like you. I like spending time with you. You’re a hell of a lot better conversationalist than the door guards.”

He pulled up one knee, resting his elbow on it and leaning forward as Felicity placed her own tiles, a double and a six/nine. She waited for him to ask his next question, tensing in anticipation. She couldn’t imagine his inquiries were about to get  _less_  personal.

"Were you unsafe with your mother?"

Felicity bit her lip, jaw twitching as she glared at Tommy’s newly laid domino. “Not with her.” It was a clipped, simple answer, and she knew it was only a delay. “Does your job end when you kill your target?”

He snorted, watching her place her tile as if she’d asked him something silly. “You’ve asked that before, but you already spent your question. Unless things spiral drastically and terribly out of control, she lives, and will even carry on more or less as usual.” His tongue pressed against his lower lip and he looked up to catch Felicity glancing at him. “Were you unsafe because your mother  _wasn’t_  home, or because someone else  _was_?”

Felicity blew out sharply from her nose, dropping his eyes and twisting her fingers together. She debated being evasive again, but some twist of conscience in her gut pointed out that he had been unexpectedly forthcoming with all of his answers. “That again depends on the year, and in a way, is yes to both.” She bit off the last word, rapidly following his domino placement with her own tile on the Mexican train.

She stared at the colored dots laid out on the carpet, contemplating her next question. A mean spike of revenge made her ask, “When you were younger, was home unsafe when your father was there?”

Tommy stared at her, his expression utterly lacking amusement for the first time in the evening. His expression was stark with cold, old fear, haunted by well-worn anger. “Yes.”

Felicity didn’t feel triumphant to pull this raw reaction from him. She held his gaze and felt sorry. She felt guilty, because she understood.

Clearly seeing this, Tommy’s face remained hard as he returned, “Which of your mother’s boyfriends hurt you, Felicity?”

She flinched, and glared. Fingers curling into fists against her legs, she straightened her back and refused the impulse to curl in on herself. Tone bitter, she answered, “I didn’t keep track.”

Tommy laughed, harsh and brittle. “That’s not how this game is played, Felicity. Answer with a lie, you forfeit your question.” She bit down on her tongue, and he leaned further toward her, eyes like blue chips of glass. “How long did she let them hurt you before she finally threw them out? Did any of them ever  _look_  at you? Touch you? Did she notice?” His hand raised, and she flinched from it, but he only pointed at her left arm. “The fractured wrist when you were thirteen, which one gave you that?”

They were no longer playing any game.

“ _That_ ,” Felicity spat, showing him the back of her wrist, “was a boy from school. My first  _boyfriend_. I broke his nose. I wasn’t going to be  _her_.” She swallowed the bubbling, old fury, and blinked back the unexpected prick of tears. “Do you ever think about the  _irony_  that you condemned Oliver as a murderer, but these days  _you’re_  the one killing people?”

Oddly, Tommy seemed to calm at this question. He exhaled long and slow, then sat back with a small, tight smile. “Absolutely. I also think about the time I had the chance to shoot my father in the face and couldn’t do it. I think about standing in front of him now, and pulling the trigger.”

Felicity swallowed, her eyes dropping from his. She unfolded her legs and tucked her knees into her chest, looping her arms around them.

Tommy sighed, and she looked up at him. “The boyfriend. The one whose nose you broke. He ever hurt you again?”

"No," Felicity said quietly. Swallowing, she held his gaze. "Hers did, though."

Tommy squared his jaw and nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry.”

The sincerity in his voice caught her off guard, and she sat up, her linked hands slipping to her ankles. “Thank you.” She licked her lips. “I am, too.” His brow wrinkled in confusion, and she clarified. “About Malcolm. You didn’t deserve that.”

She spoke with conviction. Whatever Tommy had become, whatever blood was on his hands, whatever guilt lay on his shoulders, no one deserved to have grown up in fear, with no safety in their own houses.

They held each other’s eyes for a long, strange moment of silent solidarity, until finally Tommy turned his attention to the abandoned dominoes between them and selected a tile to add to the end of his train.

They finished their game without any other questions.


	8. No Place for Promises Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is bad news and good news, and Felicity begins to make a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks go to alwaysaqueen and RosieTwiggs for their invaluable help on getting my butt in gear for finally writing this chapter. Things should start rolling more smoothly—and quickly—from here.

Felicity was stretched out in the middle of the floor between her bed and table, hands in the small of her back and legs in the air, when the door beeped its usual warning.

She hurriedly thumped back down to the carpet, scrambling into a sitting position. The last thing she needed was some cheeky remark from Tommy about her yoga and stretching exercises. She trained her eyes on the door as it began to push open—

and then it  _slammed_ shut.

Felicity jumped with a gasp and shrank backwards, eyes wide.

That had never happened before.

She furrowed her brow, getting her hands underneath her as seconds ticked by and nothing more happened.

And then—

_BANG_

The door shuddered with impact, and someone was shouting loud enough she could hear muffled, angry tones—at least two voices—through what she had previously assumed was a soundproof door.

The door shook again with another heavy thump, and Felicity shot to her feet, pulse racing, hope spiraling up in her veins, desperate and agonizing and pure like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart.

“Oliver,” she breathed.

_Please. Please be Oliver._

Chest constricting with the intensity of her hope, Felicity stared at the door, feet spread, knees bent, hands out to her sides—ready for anything.  _Anything_.

Anything except for the moment to drag on, and on, and finally end with the door beeping again and opening smooth and easy as you please—

Tommy slid through the door, opening it no farther than necessary, his expression blankly calm and body language tense but controlled as he turned and softly latched the door behind him.

Felicity stared at his deep blue dress-shirted back and slowly deflated, the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding draining away and taking hope for rescue, freedom,  _Oliver_ with it.

Felicity found her knees going wobbly and her eyes unexpectedly flooding, and turned to brace her hands on the surface of the table. She took in three careful, measured breaths, blinking rapidly to clear her tears and try to compose herself.

God, it had  _hurt_ to hope that hard. She hadn’t been sure she still had that much hope in her. She licked her lips and swallowed, bland, naked fingernails scraping along the tabletop as she curled tight grips on its edge.

Maybe it was time to stop hoping and start doing.

“Sorry about that,” Tommy spoke mildly, but there was an undertone of darkness in his voice. Anger. The promise of violence.

Strangely, Felicity didn’t feel at all like it was directed at her.

Tilting her chin up and gathering herself, she pushed off the table and turned to face him. “What was that?”

Tommy’s brows were straight, dark lines, mouth flattened seriously as he ran his gaze over her like he was checking she was in one whole piece. “Nothing I want you worrying about.”

Felicity’s nose scrunched and she folded her arms beneath her breasts. It was a little late for that.

Tommy met her eyes and sighed, jaw ticking as he seemed to grit his teeth, the hand still flat on the door curling into a hard fist. “Fine.”

He stepped away from the door and gestured towards the bed. Cautiously, Felicity moved over to it and sat down, and Tommy lowered himself beside her, a conspicuous gap of mattress between them several inches wider than he normally left.

Felicity pulled a foot onto the mattress and hugged her knee to her chest, turning half into the thin pillow to face Tommy with expectantly raised eyebrows.

He scrubbed one hand over his lightly stubbled jaw and turned to glare at the door with such poisonous venom Felicity was a little surprised the steel didn’t bubble under the heat.

“What happened?” she asked in hushed concern. She reached out and touched her fingertips to his forearm. “Tommy?”

He inhaled sharply and tore his arm away from her touch like it was a brand, launching to his feet and pacing the floor in front of the bed, his shoulders bunching and hands flexing like he wanted to wrap them around someone’s throat. He kept glaring at the door.

Felicity was beginning to feel a little afraid. “Tommy, what—”

“If anyone ever, and I mean  _ever_ ,” he interrupted, whirling to face her and cutting a sharp gesture at the door, “comes through that door who isn’t picking up your laundry or accompanied by me, Felicity, they should  _not be in here_ , do you understand?”

Felicity shrank away from him a little, releasing her knee and leaning back towards the wall. “What are you talking about?”

Tommy’s jaw and throat worked and he took a step closer to the bed, running his eyes deliberately from head to toe over her. “I need you to understand. No one but me or the laundry workers or anyone I bring with me. For any reason.” He stepped closer again and stared her in the eyes with shocking earnestness. “If one of the door guards ever sets so much as a  _toe_ across that threshold, Felicity, you tell me about it as soon as you see me. If they ever so much as  _speak_ to you. Do you understand.”

Felicity stared at him, features furrowing in confusion. “No. No, I don’t. What am I supposed to do about anybody coming in here, Tommy? What are you even worried about?”

He cut his eyes away from her, bracketing his hips with his hands, then running one back over his hair. When he looked at her again, there was such darkness in his eyes it broke her out in gooseflesh. For maybe the first time, Tommy looked truly  _murderous_. “No one, Felicity. No one but me or the doctors lays a hand on you.  _Ever_.

“No one else will touch you.” He swallowed hard, nostrils flaring as he held her gaze with that terrible intensity. He stepped closer again, his shins flush against the side of the bed. He leaned over her, reaching out an arm to brace his fingertips on the wall above her head. His eyes bored into hers, and when he spoke again, his voice was rough and hoarse, his words… unexpected. “I promise.”

Felicity’s belly filled with cold, leaden dread. Yeah. She understood.

She cut her gaze towards the door, cold fear constricting her throat as she stared at it. Someone who stood outside at all hours, who controlled when the door opened and when it shut, wanted to put hands on her. Wanted to in such a way that Tommy was furious.

And frightened.

For her.

Her lips parted, breath shaky, and that dread crept higher into her chest, curling tight around her heart and squeezing. Because Tommy could make as many promises as he liked, and Felicity could still not stop anyone who wanted to come through that door and trample all over Tommy’s directives. He could promise to keep them from her all he wanted, but the most he could do was hear about it in the aftermath.

Felicity shuddered and slowly closed her eyes.

She’d experienced any number of fears and panics since her violent arrival here, but this, this was one that had receded further and further into the background since the very first night—since her interrogation and processing. She’d begun to put it aside as “least likely nightmare,” because whatever else Tommy was, he wasn’t, he didn’t seem, he wouldn’t—

“Felicity,” his voice was soft, surprisingly regretful. His fingertips slid down her cheek gently, curling under her chin to tilt her face back towards him. “I promise.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him steadily. It wasn’t a promise he could afford to make.

Unconsciously, she licked her lips, and Tommy’s reaction left Felicity blinking and sitting up straight. He jerked his hand away from her face, his eyes dropping to her mouth and darting away in something that looked an awful lot like  _shame_.

Heart racing now to a slightly different tempo, her head tilting and brows pulling together, she watched Tommy rub two fingers over his mouth and turn his back on her.

Felicity needed to start taking action, not just to get out of here, but to protect herself while she remained.

There were very few tools and tactics available to her in this cell.

But maybe not as few as she’d thought.

“This isn’t why I came here.” Tommy’s oddly weary murmur startled Felicity out of her calculating thoughts, and she blinked to find him turning back to her again.

He sat again on the bed—again with that specific distance between them. He leaned back against the wall and let his eyes shut, and Felicity watched his chest expand and shoulders rise as he took in a deep breath.

When he exhaled, he opened his eyes and something—something had clicked  _off_  behind them. He was once again in smooth control, all his agitation and near-manic energy tucked away. It gave Felicity chills as he met her eyes.

Licking suddenly dry lips, Felicity watched his face as she picked at a loose thread on the blanket and asked, “Then why did you come here today, Tommy?”

His lips twitched up into an empty smirk. “I bring you news of the outside world.” Felicity inhaled sharply, and he watched her carefully. “Of home.”

Felicity’s fingers fisted in the blanket, the muscles in her throat straining as she clamped her teeth closed hard around the  _why_ and  _please_ that wanted to escape. She breathed rapidly through her nose, watching him watch her, waiting him out.

His smirk twitched again, genuine amusement in the curl, and he shook his head just slightly. “They’re still looking for you, Felicity.”

It hit her like a bullet from a gun—an unexaggerated metaphor—and she gasped, her face crumpling a little with the pain of the confirmation. Tommy watched her bow her head and struggle to control her breathing, watched moisture gather on her lashes, and his smirk slipped away, leaving him blank.

She lifted her head, searching his face his in overwhelming confusion, and hoarsely whispered, “Why would you tell me that?”

He sighed from his nose, something like pity creeping into his eyes. “Because they’re spinning their wheels.” He shrugged a little. “We’re good, Felicity. We didn’t leave them shit to go on. They have no leads, and without you, they’re not going to find any.”

He chuckled ruefully, tipping his head back and gazing at the ceiling as Felicity dropped her eyes to the bedspread and stared with a laser focus—like if she glared at it hard enough, the tears would go away, wouldn’t fall.

“It’s ironic, really. The only one on your little team who would be capable of finding you is  _you_.” He turned his head and frowned a little as a tear dropped from Felicity’s eye and splashed a wet spot on the blanket. “Hey, now. It should comfort you. Hopeless as it is, they’re still  _looking_.” He reached over and chucked her lightly under the chin, but Felicity only turned her head away. “Oliver beating up random thugs and Diggle hounding his girlfriend isn’t gonna turn up any clues, but it does show much they care.”

“Damn it, Tommy,” Felicity breathed, squeezing her eyes shut and swiping harshly at her cheeks. She whipped her head back around to glare at him, seething through gritted teeth, “ _Why_  would you tell me that!” His eyebrows inched up his forehead, and she shook her head in disbelief. “Are you just  _trying_  to be cruel? Did they make you a sadist as well as a killer? Because you storm in here blowing smoke how  _no one_  is going to touch me—”

Tommy’s eyes widened fractionally, eyebrows lowering like stormclouds and jaw squaring.

“—and then you do  _this_?” She flung a hand at him sharply. “Nobody’s allowed to hurt me but  _you_ , is that it?”

Tommy sat up, staring at her hard as he ran his tongue over his front teeth, unexpected tension gathering in his shoulders. “I didn’t tell you to hurt you, Felicity.” She opened her mouth to hotly protest, but he leaned forward, a hand bracing his weight between them, and she leaned away, chin coming up high in defiance as her jaw clicked shut. “I  _knew_  it would hurt you, I won’t pretend otherwise, but that isn’t  _why_  I told you.”

He was practically hissing now, a flare of temper Felicity hadn’t anticipated. “I told you because I thought you would want to know,  _even_  if it hurt, and you knowing costs me nothing.” He sat back enough to look down his nose at her, his expression going cold. “Would you prefer I let you think they’ve given up? Forgotten you?  _Moved on_?”

She glared up at him,  _hating_  the tremble in her chin. Because she couldn’t say which would be easier.

Whether she’d prefer the ignorance of not knowing they were out there, looking for her, and the slow, grey fog of convincing herself they had probably just  _stopped_ ; or the sharp, throbbing agony of helplessness, of feeling like she was reaching towards them, and them towards her, but they’d never meet in the middle.

Finally, Felicity closed her eyes and dropped her chin, exhaling on almost a sob.

That was a lie.

Felicity  _hated_  to not know.

It would be worse if he had the information and didn’t tell her.

( _Worse than what?_  something asked in the back of her mind.  _Than being able to trust him… less?_ She didn’t have an answer.)

But she couldn’t stop resenting him for not seeming to care that the news that the others were still trying to find her would be painful. Or that he was the reason they had to be  _looking_  for her in the first place.

“Hey,” Tommy’s voice gentled, soft and a little remorseful.

His hand cupped Felicity’s upper arm, thumb rubbing, palm sliding up the bare skin to rest on her shoulder and squeeze. The hairs on the back of Felicity’s neck rose, and she looked up at him to find him closer than before, head tilted to one side. A callus on the side of his thumb grazed back and forth over the edge of her collarbone, and Felicity went very, very still.

Tommy seemed to startle as she froze, blinking rapidly before jerking his hand from her skin, bringing it up like he’d run it through his hair, then dropping it to the bed instead. He cleared his throat, turned away, and stood. “Anyways. I just came to let you know they haven’t quit on you.” He stood with his back to her, fingers spreading to bracket his hips, head angling down, turning towards her just slightly. “It doesn’t change anything for you, but I just figured you’d prefer to know.”

“Tommy...” Felicity began, confused and uneasy.

He shifted on his feet, glanced at her over his shoulder, and moved for the door.

Just as he reached for the biometric panel, he stopped, palm hovering over the smooth surface without making contact. Felicity curled her knees into her chest and hugged herself as Tommy stared hard and cold at the door, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “Remember, Felicity. No one is to touch you.”

Tommy pressed his hand to the biolock, pulled the door open absolutely no more than necessary, and closed it behind him, leaving her alone.


	9. All Expectations Make Her Heart Feel Numb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity takes drastic action and begins a shift there is no turning back from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is brief mention of rape in this chapter and some very mildly dubious consent issue. Some thematic content may be triggering.

For all Tommy’s intense concern for Felicity’s safety, he left her alone for days.

She spent 72 hours in a state of hyper awareness, imagining noises at the door (hearing beeps that didn’t sound), seeing shadow-movement under a crack that didn’t exist.

It was exhausting.

But the buzzing, paranoid energy and scant, light sleep left her with ample time to plan.

She couldn’t say it wasn’t a thought she hadn’t had before, but now, now she was giving it serious examination. It was time to unwind the chains and open the lid of that dangerous box.

Felicity wasn’t blind. She wasn’t an idiot, or unobservant. She knew she was a pretty woman, and had used her physical charms to her advantage in the past. (College had been a powerful time.)

She had also seen the way Tommy looked at her sometimes. The way his eyes would catch and hesitate on her mouth, run over her body a little too slow to be merely assessing. She’d noticed the way he sometimes seemed to forget himself, the situation they were in, while he was with her. He was, perhaps, not immune.

The true, hard question was, could Felicity do it?

Could she commit to following through if Tommy took the bait?

Felicity paced back and forth across the breadth of her cell, from bed to wall, bathroom entry to table to door—then shying quickly away from the door and back to the bedside. Her fingers twisted around each other, pulse fluttering in her throat, teeth worrying at her lips.

Could she do it? Could she do… whatever it took?

Sucking in deep, even lungfuls, Felicity sat on the side of her bed, hands folding over the edge of the mattress, fingernails scraping over the cheap threads of the sheets. She stared around her at the blank white walls, the table and chair, the open doorway of the bathroom, the little twin hampers in the corner down from the door that respectively contained her three clean sets of clothing and her two dirtied ones.

She tried to imagine the next six months in this cell. Another year in this bright white box, like a pinned, preserved butterfly. Tried to imagine being here… forever. And just accepting it.

She couldn’t. Just the thought of living the rest of her life locked in this cramped  _trap_  made her want to claw her own skin off, tip back her head and  _scream_  til her throat was raw and bleeding.

But refusing to accept that fate, choosing to actually  _do_ _something_ , was its own daunting possibility. Felicity looked down at her hands in her lap, smoothed the palms over the thin, soft fabric of her pants. Tried to imagine Tommy’s hands in their place.

She inhaled long and slow, shut her eyes, and tried to imagine lying on her back, Tommy’s weight covering her, the press of his body against hers and that breath of laughter puffing against her ear.

She shuddered.

Taking two quick breaths, her lashes fluttered and she leaned back on her hands, going back to that night he visited after lights out. She could feel his hand on her stomach again, his breath on her mouth, and put her own hand over her navel, fingertips pressing. In her mind, he didn’t sit back. He didn’t rein himself in and leave.

In her mind, she leaned forward and closed the space between them herself.

Felicity’s eyes opened slowly, and she licked her dry lips, swallowing as she stared resolutely at the far wall. She was as ready as she was going to get.

It was time to stop reacting, and take control for herself.

—

By some queer mercy, she was not left too long to doubt her decision.

The warning beep sounded shortly after lunch the following day, and Felicity met her own eyes in the slightly-warped flat plastic mirror set in the bathroom wall over the sink, heart leaping instantly into her throat.

Her fingers squeezed around the thin, short towel she’d been tousling her hair with. She hadn’t felt comfortable taking a real, all-clothes-off shower in days, splash-bathing in the sink and only just having braved sticking her head under the showerhead to flash-shampoo her hair. She stepped quickly into the open doorway between the bathroom and her cell, weight poised on the back foot, veins thrumming as she waited to see who crossed her threshold.

The door opened and Tommy stepped inside, rumpled in normal clothes again: black jeans; long-sleeved cornflower blue V-necked tee. His eyes swept over her bed, carpet, and table before finding her in the bathroom doorway. She let go of a little of her tension when his face held none of the wild agitation of his last visit.

They stared at each other a moment, Felicity wringing the ends of her wet curls in the towel one more time as she rolled her lips, waiting for him to speak, to do something other than stand there with his hand on the door.

Tommy’s eyes flickered over her as she lowered the towel to twist at her waist. Whatever he saw, his shoulders dropped almost imperceptibly, lips parting on an exhale. On the way back up, his gaze lingered on the water droplets spotting Felicity’s shoulders and the chest of her tanktop.

She sucked on her lower lip as he blinked twice and dragged his eyes up to hers, one brow quirking over tired eyes as he asked, “Am I interrupting?”

Jaw tightening, Felicity lowered her eyelids and raised her eyebrows at his blitheness. His mouth pursed in answer, pulling to the side as he tapped his fingers softly against the door.

“I meant to check back in with you sooner. I’ve been…” His lips compressed, eyes dropping and nostrils flaring as he glared at the floor. “Busier than I anticipated.”

Felicity’s mouth fell open. That was almost an apology.

Heart rate picking up again, Felicity tore her eyes from Tommy’s and crossed the small room to the clothes hampers, dropping the towel she’d twisted into a knot atop the week’s discarded clothes.

She could do this.

She took a deep breath and turned as Tommy moved at last from the door, both hands scrubbing over his face. He stood by her bed, weight shifting from foot to foot as if he didn’t know what to do with himself. Catching his eye, she raised an eyebrow and asked, “What, worried I missed you?”

Tommy blinked at her, lips twitching in an almost involuntary curl. Snorting softly, he lowered himself to the floor in front of her bed, stretching his legs out long and crossing the ankles.

“Oh, I  _would_  hate to leave you lonely, Smoak,” he snarked back, head tipping back against the edge of the mattress, hands settling in his lap.

Felicity looked at him, hesitating, then licked her lips slowly and stepped forward. “You look…”

She tilted her head as she approached, examining him from head to toe. He’d clearly been running his fingers through his hair and his clothes had settled in wrinkled lines from hours of wear, but most telling of all was the tightness at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Stopping by his knees, she met his gaze again and finished, “Tired.”

He huffed from his nose, smirking and nodding almost ruefully. “Like I said. I’ve been very, very busy.”

His left hand tightened into a fist against his thigh.

Inhaling sharply, he lifted his head in a sudden enough motion Felicity startled slightly, blinking at him rapidly under the intense stare he pinned her with. “Has anything… happened while I was away?”

Lips parting, Felicity catalogued the tension squaring his jaw, the concern in his eyes. Worried for her. Protective of her. Things she could hold onto.

She shook her head.

Tommy held her gaze a moment longer then sighed, eyes closing briefly.

Felicity turned and lowered herself to the floor beside him, swallowing as she sat close enough to feel his body heat warming her side. Pulling her knees up a little, she stared at her hands as they smoothed over the soft black material of her pants. Drawing her lower lip into her mouth, she sucked on it contemplatively, letting it free with a wet pop as she turned to look at Tommy again.

He was watching her with a detached curiosity. Felicity wanted to look away, but couldn’t. She held his eyes, dragging her teeth over her lip again to see his attention flicker to her mouth.

“Thank you.”

Tommy started, expression briefly guilty as he yanked his eyes back to hers. Slowly, confusion clouded his brow, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “For?”

Felicity curved her mouth into a wry smile, wrapping her arms under her thighs and leaning her cheek against her knees as she looked up at him. “Keeping your promise, I suppose.”

Tommy’s lips parted as he stared at her, brows twitching together. “Right. Because I’m sure you’ve felt  _absolutely_  safe and comfortable the last few days.”

She sat back up, folding her arms against her knees and tilting her head at him, lips pursing. “Oh, yeah, because I typically feel  _safe and comfortable_  here. In my cell.” He rolled his eyes and looked away, jaw working irritably, and Felicity’s stomach clenched. Tentatively, she reached out and put her hand on his arm, fingers sliding over the firm curve of his bicep, sleeve soft against her skin. “Honestly, Tommy. I know what I am, here. I know what this place is.”

He stared straight ahead, expression slipping from frustrated to blank in profile as she spoke. He licked his lips, and she squeezed his arm.

When he finally looked back at her, she smiled, small and a little weak, but she put… feeling into it. She needed him to believe her. “But I also know that this could all be…” She dropped her gaze, let her fingers slip down his arm to his wrist, pulled in a shaky breath. “A lot worse.” She swallowed. “And I just—I really—I’m grateful.”

“Felicity,” her name was a sigh on his lips, reluctant, a little weary—a little sharp at the edges. “You really shouldn’t be. We’ve had this conversation before.”

She scoffed a laugh, leaning back a little and supporting her weight with her right hand on the floor, legs bending to the side, her knees brushing his leg. Her left hand still loosely circled Tommy’s wrist. “Right, I know. I  _know_. I shouldn’t get too comfortable with you, you’re a bad man, I need to remember my place.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re so full of shit, Tommy.”

His eyebrows jumped high. “Oh, really.”

Turning her upper body towards him, she nodded. “You don’t have to—to do the things you do. Be nice to me. Talk to me, bring me books. Play card games with me, especially since I always win.” His lips twitched, and a little flare of triumph soared in her chest. “You don’t  _have_  to protect me. But you do.”

His eyes roamed her face, head shaking just slightly. “It’s really not that simple.”

“Tommy,” she laughed his name, playful, chiding. “Of course it’s not.” She dropped her gaze to her hand on his wrist, traced her fingers down the strong bones and across the back of his hand, circling each knuckle with the tip of her index finger. “Nothing here—nothing is simple. But you still… you still want to keep me safe.” He inhaled, and she cut ahead of him. “Okay, for a given value of safe.”

His hand flexed under hers, fingers spreading, relaxing, pressing into his thigh. Felicity watched, smoothing her fingers over his, flattening her palm over the back of his hand. “It means something, Tommy. Nobody puts their hands on me but you.”

Slowly, she lifted her eyes to his again, lashes flickering as his throat worked from a hard swallow. “So thank you.”

 _Now or never_.

Heart beating furiously against her sternum, Felicity leveraged a knee underneath her and shifted her body towards Tommy, her chest pressing into his shoulder as she lifted her right hand to cup his jaw.

Tommy’s chin jerked up and, as he inhaled sharply, she surged forward and pressed her mouth to his, eyes slipping shut. She caught him with his lips parted, hers fitting between them with gentle pressure.

It lasted only seconds and, her heart seizing like a fist, Felicity pulled back, breath shaky as his hit her face, warm and rapid. She licked her lips reflexively, still so close the tip of her tongue brushed Tommy’s bottom lip.

Tommy swore, a sound so slurred and muffled with frustration it was hardly a recognizable word, and then his mouth covered hers again, returning her pressure measure for measure. Absurdly surprised by his reaction, Felicity gasped, and Tommy’s lips slid soft and wet over hers.

Rallying her courage, Felicity pressed the advantage, licking tentatively into his mouth. He responded strongly, a little hum vibrating in his throat as he stroked her tongue with his own. He bit down gently on her lower lip and her toes curled against the carpet, heat and shame pooling in her gut.

Abruptly, Tommy pulled back and when Felicity leaned in to follow, he lifted a hand and caught the fingers curled around his jaw, his grip tight, not yet crushing.

“Felicity,” he breathed, voice rough with gravel and a thread of warning. “What are you doing?”

She opened her eyes, warmth flooding her cheeks as she found him staring down at her, eyes hard and wary, a spark of anger backlighting the blue. Pulling away from him just a little, her mouth worked, the beginnings of panic winding roots into her chest. “I…” God, why hadn’t she prepared for  _this_? Just push through it, just keep going… “I’m—”

“Seducing me?” He cut her off with a bitter chuckle, a dark burr in his tone. “Right.” He squeezed her fingers, and she winced, more at the anticipation of anger or pain than at any actual harm. He stared down at her, chin raised high, upper lip twitching in that cold face. “How’s that working out for you?”

Sucking in a shallow breath, Felicity lifted her head, meeting Tommy stare for stare. Guts twisting like snakes, she set her fingers tracing the back of the hand in his lap again, deliberately dropping her gaze to his mouth. The slightest tremble in her voice, she murmured, “It seemed to be working out pretty well a minute ago.”

A flicker of rage rippled across Tommy’s expression, and in an instant he had both her wrists in either hand, surging forward to pin her against the side of the bed. The bedrail bit into her spine, cold and hard, and she squeaked, eyes rounding in fear as Tommy climbed onto his knees, looming over her, glaring.

He held her eyes and lowered his face inches from hers, hissing through his teeth, “You think so?” He licked his lips slowly, mouth curving like the edge of a knife, and opened his hands around her wrists, palms sliding up her skin to press open against hers. He laced their fingers together tightly, pushing her knuckles harder into the mattress. “You thought that was going pretty well, huh? All according to plan?”

Lips shaking, Felicity turned her face away, swallowing hard. Tommy shook her slightly, demanding her attention. “Exactly how far were you thinking this would go, huh? How far were you  _prepared_  to go?” She just stared at him and swallowed, clamping her jaw shut. His eyebrows shot up, barking an incredulous laugh. “You don’t even know, do you!”

Felicity inhaled—to protest? argue? tell him to stop what  _she_  had started?—but he shook his head sharply, raking his eyes down her body with a deliberateness that raised gooseflesh across her skin.

“I don’t know what the hell you thought you would accomplish with this. What, you thought—you’d kiss me and I’d fall in  _love_ ,” he all but sneered the word, “and I’d let you go? Or you’d seduce me into bed and somehow magically gain the upper hand?” He chuckled darkly, leaning in and whispering into her ear. “I’m not James Bond, Felicity, and you’re not exactly a femme fatale. What did you think would  _change_?”

He pulled back, looking into her face like she genuinely perplexed him. Felicity licked her lips, heartbeat fluttering in her throat. “Tommy, I just—”

“What?” he snapped, chin lifting. “You just  _what_ , Felicity? Thought you’d let me take your clothes off? Lay you out on the bed? Did you tell yourself it’d be okay if nobody put their hands on you but  _me_?” He said the last in mocking singsong and looked her over again, lip curling, head shaking. “You can sit there and talk about how I  _protect_  you all you want, but this game you’re trying to play?” He smiled, a cruel baring of teeth as his thumbs slowly, smoothly stroked up and down hers. “That’s not protection. That’s not smart strategy. That’s just letting your jailor fuck you.”

Felicity sucked in a hard breath, defiance and humiliation rushing warmth through her veins. She squeezed his hands. “Is that what you  _wanted_ , Tommy? Is that what you want from me and are scared to take because of what it’ll make you?” She raised her chin, staring him boldly in the eyes. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, how you watch me. I  _know_ you’ve thought about it.”

He went stiff, spine straightening and putting inches more between them. His face drained of expression, a muscle in his jaw leaping with tension. “It doesn’t  _matter_  what I’ve thought about. Why the  _fuck_  would you want me to act on it?” He scoffed, loosening his grip on her hands. “The League has a code. There are lines we  _do not cross_. Even  _murderers_  know rape is too far, Felicity, and  _that_  is what you are inviting.” He glanced around the room, eyes lingering on the bed before finding hers again. “In here… that is the  _only_  thing sex would be.”

He shoved to his feet, his hands leaving hers so abruptly she gasped, left feeling cold and very small on the floor as he stood over her. He raised his eyebrows at her once, then slid his gaze very deliberately to the door. “You can choose your monster, if you like. You wanna pull this shit again, I’m sure you can find one with less conviction than me, and you can take that gamble. Let him touch you and use you and hope something  _changes_.” He shook his head again. “Nothing will.”

Felicity watched him warily as she slowly leveraged herself against the bed and to her feet. She was beginning to shake and chose  _anger_  for the why. “You’ve got some awfully romantic notions about yourself, Tommy. The  _good_  killer, the one who will scare me and lock me away and drug me for answers, but _at least_  there’s some things you still won’t do! At least you’re still too good to fuck your prisoner!”

He'd started to turn away but whirled back, hands raising to his shoulders and clenching into fists. “YES!” He shouted so furiously, Felicity flinched back, cheeks paling. His eyes bored into hers. “Yes! I am not a  _good man_  anymore, I’ve made my peace with that.” He took a step forward, jabbing a finger at her, but when she all but jumped back, knees against the bed, he rocked back onto his heels, drew himself up. “I am not  _that_  fucked up. I am not a rapist. There are things I  _will not do_ , and that you would even think that I might…”

Tommy turned his head sharply away, and for just a moment, he looked stricken. Sick.

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and shut them, inhaling deeply and opening his eyes with that smooth, empty mask back in place. He looked at Felicity so coldly she shivered. “We’re done here.”

He moved for the door and Felicity jolted back into action, stepping away from the bed as he slapped his palm against the biometric panel. “Tommy—”

The signal beeped and he threw her one last hard glance over his shoulder, ripped open the door, and closed it with a quiet, final  _click_  behind him.

Breathing heavily, she stared after him, shaking hands slowly curling into fists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been waffling on whether or not to add tags to the fic for Stockholm/Lima Syndrome, and while there are absolutely elements of that in Tommy and Felicity's dynamic, I'm not sure it's truly reached that point between them. If anyone disagrees and would like me to tag those, I will make the adjustment immediately.


	10. These Versions of Violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains graphic violence and a scene of attempted sexual assault. This may be triggering or upsetting for some readers, so proceed with caution. If anyone would prefer to skip this chapter, or cut to the end, and would like a summary of events, please feel free to ask in comments, and I will be happy to hit the highlights for your convenience.

For four days, Tommy gave Felicity the cold shoulder.

He was, apparently, angry enough with her he didn’t care to know what happened to her.

Of course, for all she knew, he could be checking in at the door, and just not coming inside. He could be monitoring her via cameras in her cell that she couldn’t see (an assumption she operated under by default, changing her clothes so as to never actually be naked outside the shower—which she had finally braved two days after Tommy stormed out on her.)

Felicity didn’t care if Tommy was angry. He wasn’t the only one. And the longer he stayed away, the angrier she got.

She couldn’t focus on the books Tommy had left her long enough to read, and was too full of restless energy to work through her yoga forms. The silence of her cell seemed deafening, and games of solitaire threw her isolation into even starker relief. It made her realize how much she had come to depend on Tommy’s frequent visits to break up the monotony and helplessness of her captivity. The realization of that dependence was infuriating, launching her off her bed as frustration and irritation climbed her throat with acidic bite. The epiphany that Tommy withholding his attention was actually an effective punishment set her blood to a boil, jaw clenching and feet pushing forward in a need to move, to do  _something_.

Felicity paced and fumed, hands clenching and unclenching, agitatedly running back and roughly grabbing her hair into a ponytail before dropping the loose, frizzed curls to swing heavy against her shoulders. Teeth grinding, she stopped in the middle of the room and glared at the far wall of her cell, hands planting on her hips.

How  _dare_  Tommy behave like the wronged party? What gall he had, to act as if her seduction attempt were both insult and injury; as if he should be deserving of some special respect, as if she should  _think better of him_.

Felicity scoffed into the empty air and whirled on her heel, covering in quick strides the short distance back to her bedside. Sitting heavily on the mattress, she glared at the carpet. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t given her every reason to think the ploy could work. That he might be receptive.

She pressed her fingertips to her lips, lashes fluttering closed at the memory of Tommy’s mouth against hers, the almost desperate intensity as he’d deepened the kiss. For those moments he’d given himself over to it, he’d certainly seemed to want her. Like he would  _let_  himself want her.

Opening her eyes, Felicity dragged her fingers from her lips and smacked her palm against the bedsheets, scowling. Her cheeks heated in the echo of embarrassment, his scorn and outrage ringing in her ears. The contempt was—was humiliating, but the  _indignation_ … he had no right to that. Not when he was the reason she was  _here_ , locked away and backed so hard into a corner that she was willing to trade her body for a chance at power, at the slightest thread of control.

Felicity hissed an exhale between her teeth. He’d be back. There was some sort of  _point_  to his visits, whatever his real purpose was. And she had her suspicions that even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to stay away.

And when he finally came back through that door, undoubtedly with that brassy, too-broad grin as he tried to pretend nothing had happened—or worse, if he so much as  _dared_  to carry on with his sanctimonious censure—she was going to give him one hell of a piece of her mind.

Feeling overheated, Felicity shoved to her feet and stalked across the room to the bathroom, the tiles cool under her soles as she crossed the threshold and stopped at the sink. She turned the tap perhaps a little harder than necessary, cold water rushing out of the faucet and filling the echoing room with the hush of white noise.

Bending at the waist, she cupped her hands under the spray, a surge of irritation clenching her jaw at the just-less-than adequate water pressure. She splashed the cold liquid over her face, curls catching droplets as the water cooled her cheeks and spiked her lashes. It did little to nothing, however, to douse her temper.

Felicity straightened, reaching for the tiny, thin scratchy hand towel that rested on what little counter space existed. Breathing deep, she dabbed the wet from her face, patting the damp cloth down her neck as she struggled to wrestle the anger buzzing like live current beneath her skin under control. Maintaining that level of outrage would only exhaust her, and she had no idea how long she might have to wait for Tommy to—

The door tone sounded softly overhead.

Felicity’s head shot up, nostrils flaring, lips twitching to bare her teeth as she tossed the towel down hard, whirling. She strode back into the cell. “Tommy Merlyn, if you think for one  _second_ —”

She jerked to a halt with a gasp, drawing herself up straight and rocking back on her heels, breath locking painfully in her throat as she stared with wide eyes at the door.

And at the man who stood there.

“You can’t be here,” Felicity choked out, stumbling backwards a step. “You can’t be in here, you need to  _get out_.”

“Not who you were expecting?” The door guard—not the one who had been present for her interrogation—smirked, the curl of his full lips cruel under a thin, dark mustache. He spoke with the sort of bland, Nowhere, USA accent favored by newscasters and weathermen. He shifted his weight further into the room, door shutting with a quiet click behind him, and Felicity felt the room grow smaller with the threat of his tall, broad figure electrifying the air. “You should welcome the change.”

Gut clenching into a ball in fear at the  _leer_  in those last words, Felicity jerked her chin high, squaring her shoulders and taking a deliberate step towards the guard. “You need to leave.”

“No,” he drawled, licking his lips and running dark, heavy-lidded eyes down her body. “That’s not what I need at all.”

Every hair on Felicity’s skin rose as a shudder rippled through her, and she had to clench her hands into fists, fingernails biting into her palms, to keep from stepping back. Pulse jumping in her throat, breath coming faster, she tried to keep her voice firm as she said, “You need to  _go_. Tommy’s the only one who—”

“ _Tommy_ ,” the guard sneered, stepping closer and settling his hands on his belt. His upper lip curled in scorn. “ _Merlyn_  has been greedy, selfish. No unnamed  _boy_  commands me. He hoards power like he hoards his little toy.” Lowering his chin, he stepped forward again, Felicity shuffling back onto her heel in mirror. “He is undeserving.”

Heart a hammer-beat under her sternum, Felicity wracked her brain for something,  _anything_  in the room she might improvise as a weapon, all without taking her eyes off the threat in front of her. She nervously licked her lips, gut swirling with nausea as the guard’s gaze dropped to her mouth, narrowing, lingering. His right hand shifted forward to his belt buckle, tugged at the thick, black leather.

“I think I want you on your knees.”

Felicity inhaled so sharply it rattled in the back of her throat. Taking three small, quick steps back, she spat, “Go to hell.”

They stared at each other; his eyelid twitched.

The guard lunged forward.

Felicity reacted before the movement even hit her brain, spun, launched towards the table—and the mechanical pencil lined up neatly beside her papers. Fingers twisted in her hair, yanking her head back and jerking her to a halt with a pained cry.

“Let me go!” She screamed, voice tearing at her throat as she reached back, locking her hands around the guard’s wrist, fingernails digging.

He pulled her back hard against his body, wrapping an arm around her waist, broad hand dragging up her stomach, callouses catching against her shirt. He palmed her breast, squeezed roughly. Hot, moist breath fanned against her ear as he growled, “You will submit.”

“Fuck you!” Felicity threw her head back, sharp bone cracking against her skull.

The guard swore and shoved her away, sending her fumbling to hands and knees as pain rang through her head. She shook herself, gut churning sickly, sucking in air through her teeth and raising her chin. If she could reach the table—

“You little  _whore_.” The guard snatched the back of her shirt, and Felicity cried out in anger, frustration as he hauled her back.

The carpet burned at her palms and knees, and she twisted to look over her shoulder and aim a kick at his groin. Her heel landed solidly in his gut instead, his breath exploding through bloodied teeth as his grasp slackened on her shirt.

She surged forward on her knees, hand outstretched for the table leg, fingertips brushing cool, brushed steel—and he caught her ankle, pulling.

“No!” Felicity sobbed, flailing wildly to grab at the table leg. The guard pulled on her ankle again and her palm hit the floor, fingernail catching on the screw that bolted the table down, tearing.

An elbow slammed sharply into the small of her back, and she crashed hard into the carpet. Her teeth snapped together, tongue in the way, and she swallowed blood.

Breathing heavily, the guard huffed a dark laugh as he pinned her with a hand between her shoulder blades and a knee pressing down on the backs of her thighs. “You have such fight. It’s only more exciting.”

Felicity bucked, trying to throw his weight. “Get off!”

He chuckled, free hand pinching the hem of her shirt and drawing it slowly up her back. “Oh, I will.”

She blinked furiously, tears gathering in her eyes and breath coming in rapid panic. “No, no no no no no—”

He leaned down, breathed in her ear, “Keep talking. Scream and beg all you want. I enjoy it.”

Gritting her teeth viciously, Felicity threw her weight sideways and slammed her elbow back and up, aiming blindly. She clipped him in the arm and he swore, digging his hand beneath her ribs and lifting his knee off her legs to roll her onto her back.

Before Felicity could so much as sit up, one large hand encircled her throat, pressing her down, squeezing, and he sat heavily on her thighs. Choking, she scrabbled at his wrist, fingernails biting, scratching.  

He leered above her, unmoved, tongue sliding across his lower lip, dark hair falling across his forehead, cheeks flushed high. His free hand stroked softly over the skin of her stomach. Lips skinning back from her teeth, Felicity let go of his wrist and reached up, the only thought in her head  _eyes, thumbs, pressure, hurt him_.

The guard jerked his head up, laughing condescendingly. He pulled the hand off her stomach and caught both her wrists, squeezing the bones together to make her cry out. “This will go better for you if you lie still.”

He stretched her arms above her head, pinning her wrists to the floor, running his gaze down the long, taut lines of her torso. Humming deep in his throat, he took the hand off her throat—she gasped greedily, coughing—and reached towards his belt, fingers running along the leather til he unclipped a small switchblade at his hip.

“No!” Felicity yelped in fear, sobbing as the light gleamed on the blade.

The guard grinned wide, macabre, teeth still stained red as he dragged the point of the blade lightly up her stomach from her navel, over her rucked-up shirt, drawing a heart over the thundering beat under the skin of her chest. “Can’t trust you to cooperate. Have to do everything myself.”

Felicity breathed rapidly through clenched teeth, turning her head away and squeezing her eyes shut as the knifepoint traced up into the hollow of her throat, pressing,  _pressing_  so delicately, pressure and then a prick of pain. She held very still, pushing herself back into the carpet as hard as she could, straining away from the blade to no avail, an almost animal howl caught in her throat.

The knife eased up and traced back along her collarbone, the guard chuckling. “Go on, little one.  _Scream_  for me.”

The blade slid between her skin and the straps of her bra and shirt. With a hard yank, he severed them both. He repeated the action on the other side, then lifted the blade away to lay the flat against her jaw, turning her face back towards him. She slitted her eyes open—resenting the tear that slipped down her temple into her hair—and he tilted his head at her, raising one thick eyebrow.

“Come on. Scream.”

He held her eyes as he ran the backs of his knuckles down her neck, her chest, stopped to hook a finger in the neckline of her shirt and began to  _pull_.

Rage and spite bubbling in her gut, Felicity filled her lungs and unclenched her jaw, tipping her head back and screaming so her whole throat vibrated, “ _Tommy!_ ”

The guard startled atop her, his hand coming away from her chest and snatching her by the jaw. He leaned down into her face, eyes wide and wild, cruel and filled with some manic light as he bared his teeth. “You scream for  _him_? You wish it was the  _boy_  above you, touching you, but he cannot save you fr—”

He didn’t finish, his head jerking back with an outraged, pained cry. His hands came off Felicity’s face and wrists, the knife clattering to the floor by her shoulder as the guard reached back behind his head. Jerkily, his weight lifted off of her legs, and Felicity scrambled backwards until she was half underneath the table.

Tommy stood behind the guard, one hand fisted in the guard’s thick hair, the other twisted in his shirt collar. His face a cold mask of fury, he brought one booted foot down into the back of the guard’s knee, the crunch of cartilage quickly drowned out by the guard’s shout. Briefly, he raised his eyes and met Felicity’s gaze; his expression did not change, and he whirled and threw the guard face-first into the wall by the door.

Breathing in quick, shallow gasps, Felicity’s eyes darted from Tommy standing over the guard—who was groaning and struggling to leverage himself up against the wall—to the knife not two feet away on the carpet. Swallowing a whimper, Felicity lunged forward, snatched the switchblade up, and immediately retreated back under the table, the fingers of her free hand winding tight around the cold metal of the table leg.

The guard struggled up onto one knee and turned to glare at Tommy—blood streaming down his face from his nose, crushed flat and split across the bridge—and spat a reddish wad at Tommy’s feet. Grinning, mouth all full of blood, the guard laughed, “Jealous boy, angry another man plays with your  _toy_. Selfish little rich boy, never learned to share—”

Tommy slammed his knee into the guard’s chin, throwing him back down against the wall with a crash, a strangled, gurgling scream in his throat. Hands at his sides, Tommy stood over him, fingers flexing over and over into fists. A muscle leaped in his jaw. “You have disobeyed me and dishonored yourself.”

Bracing against the wall, the guard roared and launched at Tommy, shoulder forward. Tommy twisted aside, flashing out a hand to shove at the back of the guard’s head as he passed, sending him stumbling into the corner of the foot of the bed. Felicity flinched, inching just a little deeper beneath the table, shifting her grip on the handle of the switchblade and tucking her lips between her teeth to keep from making a sound.

Turning in a crouch to glare viciously at Tommy, veins standing out in his neck and at his temples, the guard shouted, bloodied spittle flying, “You do not order me! Your honor is  _nothing_! You don’t even have a name, all you have is undeserved power and your slut—”

Tommy’s face rippled with rage, the only warning before his leg snapped out, foot catching the guard in the ribs. S _nap_ —and a hissing gasp. Felicity’s eyes widened as Tommy prowled forward, eyes burning like phosphorous lamps. The guard clutched his side and struggled to his feet.

As soon as Tommy was within reach, the guard aimed the knife-edge of his hand at Tommy’s throat. Tommy smacked the guard’s hand aside with a raised forearm, but caught the fist that followed in the mouth. He took the punch with a turn of his head, grabbing the guard’s arm and  _twisting_ , bearing him back down to one knee with a hiss of syllables in another language.

The guard hammered his fist into Tommy’s side, once, twice, three times. With a grunt, Tommy wrenched his arm further up and back, the grind and crunch of cartilage and bone lost in the guard’s shout. Lips skinning back from his teeth, Tommy kicked at the ankle supporting the guard, shoving him facedown into the carpet as his leg went out from under him.

Breathing a little harder, Tommy released the guard’s arm and pressed a knee down into his back, holding him there where he groaned. Tommy licked at his front teeth, dabbing his mouth with the back of a hand and staring coldly at the thin smear of blood. “I told you that we would only have this conversation once.”

He lifted his knee off the guard’s back, grabbing his shoulder and rolling him onto his back before straddling his stomach. The guard’s eyes rolled open—his nose a pulped, bloodied lump, lower face a mask of red—and Tommy took a fistful of his shirt collar in one hand. “This is no longer a conversation, Al-dhi'b.”

The guard—Al-dhi'b—laughed, a wet, muffled sound. “Kill me, boy. Kill me now while you  _can_. Or I will come back for her, and when I fuck her, I will make you watch—”

Tommy hit him. And then again. And again. Again. Felicity quickly lost track of how many times Tommy’s fist smashed into Al-dhi'b’s face, her world briefly fuzzing into a strange unfocus, just the meaty  _thud_  and the little, arcing red patterns of blood splashing Tommy’s crisp, pale blue dress shirt.

And then he stopped.

Eyes wide and wild, Tommy lifted the guard off the floor by his shirt, his head lolling back, and Tommy leaned in close, hissing, “I told you. You will  _never touch her_.”

Jerking his chin up in a sneer, Tommy dropped Al-dhi'b’s deadweight back to the floor. He knelt over the unconscious guard a few moments more, breathing hard, hands loose against the thighs of his black jeans.

Felicity scooted backward until she hit the wall. She stared at the split, bleeding skin across Tommy’s knuckles, and her hands around the hilt of the knife shook. Tommy stood, and she tightened her grip. She watched his legs—all she could see of him from beneath the table—turn and approach her, and the shaking moved into the rest of her body, her teeth beginning to chatter and tears pricking at eyes that felt too dry.

Tommy’s feet stopped in front of the table, and he knelt down, one hand gripping the table’s edge as he ducked his head and peered in at her. “Felicity.”

She folded her lips together, her breath coming faster, hands jerking up and pointing the blade at Tommy. His eyes dropped to it, then traveled over her—bare shoulders, red-marked throat, her face—and he swallowed hard. “Felicity, please give me the knife.”

She shook her head, a hiccuping whimper catching in her throat as he slowly reached a hand towards her, palm up, halting inches from the knife blade. He stared at her patiently, earnestly, his lip split and bleeding down his chin, cheek red and beginning to swell.

“Please.”

“T-Tommy, I can’t, he’s, he—” Felicity sucked in a sharp breath, eyes dragging away from Tommy, looking past him to the guard’s prone form.

“He’s down.” Tommy leaned forward, his voice hot and emphatic, eyes burning fervently. “He is  _down_ , and he will never,  _ever_  touch you again.” His hand moved forward, past the blade, and he turned his palm, just barely touching his fingertips to the back of Felicity’s hand. He pressed the touch, just the smallest pressure. She snapped her attention back to him, locking her eyes to his, trying desperately to read them. “Please, Felicity. Give me the knife.”

Chin trembling, she swallowed a sob and screwed her eyes shut, just for a second. Then she inhaled long and slow, shaky. Blew the breath out, drew in another, infinitesimally steadier. Meeting Tommy’s eyes again, she pulled one hand off the hilt of the knife, and then slowly, so slowly pressed her fingers into his waiting palm.

He cupped his hand for her to drop the knife into, and she tucked her shaking hands between her knees while she watched him close the switchblade, tucking it into his back pocket.

Running his eyes over her again, Tommy shuffled backward a bit, shifting more to the side, blocking the guard from Felicity’s view almost completely. He held out a hand towards her again, but kept it from crossing the invisible barrier of the space beneath the table.

“Will you come out?”

Felicity pressed her hands to her mouth, tears slipping hot down cold cheeks. She swiped them away, blowing carefully measured breaths through shaking lips. Slow and careful, she got her feet beneath her, reaching out and grabbing onto the table leg to pull and scoot her way out from beneath the table.

Tommy hovered a foot away, both hands out towards her, waiting, and he held her gaze while she reached up with both hands to grip the table’s edge and pull herself unsteadily to her feet. He rose with her, expression twitching as his eyes slid down her body—her shirt still rucked up around her ribs, the straps cut and dangling, neckline pushed too low—before he jerked his gaze back to her face, his features hardening into a carefully neutral mask.

His eyes, however, may as well have scorched. Uncomfortable, Felicity tugged at the neckline of her ruined shirt with one hand, trying to pull the hem back down her stomach with the other, bile acrid in her raw throat.

Shaking his head sharply, Tommy began to unbutton his dress shirt, and Felicity froze, eyes going wide and locking onto the expanding view of his gray undershirt. Her hands flew to the table edge again, white-knuckling as she pressed back against it.

Tommy looked back up at her from his fingers’ work and his mouth fell open, eyes pinching at the corners with pain. “No— _shit_ , Felicity, no, I’m sorry. I just.” Swearing under his breath, he shrugged out of the shirt and cleared his throat, eyes dropping to the floor as he held the shirt out to her. “I…” He raised his eyes to her again, and she bit at her bottom lip, fingers slacking on the table as he stared. “Please.”

Measuring her breaths again, Felicity uncurled one hand from the table and reached out hesitantly, catching Tommy’s shirt by the sleeve and waiting for him to let go. He did, and she curled her arm back into her chest, turning to one side before shrugging into the shirt. She concentrated for a moment on rolling back the sleeves to free her hands and doing up as many of the buttons as her uncooperative fingers could manage.

“Come on.” Tommy’s voice broke the momentary hush, throaty and subdued, and she turned back to find him looking at her again with that—she couldn’t even name the expression. He held out a hand towards her, and had shifted so she could see the door beyond him.

The door that stood ajar, a slice of hallway visible beyond.

Felicity sucked in a breath so hard it hurt, her chest squeezing, heart tripping into a race all over again as she stared at the door, then jerked her eyes sideways to Tommy.

Licking his lips hurriedly, he dipped his chin in a nod. “I’m not going to leave you here.” She stared at him, fingers curling tight in the loose tails of his shirt. “We’re going to go somewhere else. Somewhere I can keep you safe.”

He lifted a hand towards her again, canting his head towards the door. Releasing the shirttails, Felicity wrapped her arms tightly around her waist and took a hesitant step forward, eyes flicking incessantly from Tommy to the door, the door to Tommy. He watched her approach patiently, and when the pattern of her gaze dropped to include Al-dhi'b, Tommy cautiously stepped towards her, and the door, keeping himself between Felicity and the guard.

As she got closer, Felicity stared long and hard at her attacker’s ravaged face, the fingers of her right hand twitching. She wished she still had the knife. She could just… kneel down, slit his throat. Over and done with. Forever. Just that quick, stand up and leave.

Tommy drew a little closer, and Felicity dragged her eyes up and met his. He asked silent permission, his hand hovering at her back close enough she could feel the warmth through his thin shirt. She blinked, and looked away to the door.

Sighing softly, Tommy’s fingertips just barely pressed between her shoulder blades; a light, tethering touch. “Come on.” They paused at the door, and Tommy wrapped his free hand around the knob, pulling it wide. Felicity inhaled deeply as air wafted in from the hall—no different. “Let’s go.”

Felicity licked her lips and blinked at the bland hallway—beige walls, colorlessly brown carpet; a prone, unconscious guard face down against the far wall—and lifted one hesitant foot.

Tommy’s hand at her back, she crossed the threshold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely could not have ever gotten through the writing of this chapter without the incredible support of RosieTwiggs and Ash818, who held my hand through creeping myself out, acted as soundboards for plot-checking, reassured me when I agonized over whether I was putting Felicity--and the readers--through unnecessary trauma, and in multiple cases tightened up the action. StoriesbyLadyChi also did a considerable amount of pinch-hitting and vetting. These ladies have been a wellspring of emotional support as well as incredible betas and friends. I am unutterably grateful for them and their contributions.


	11. You Were No Salvation (Face It)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter deals with the aftermath of attempted assault, as well as panic/anxiety attacks and may be triggering or difficult for some readers.

Endless hallways. Right turn, left turn, left, left, right, right. Or was that left? How many corners?

The walls ran together, disjointed passages of beige, off white, eggshell, grey, tan—closed door, open door on a dark room, branching hall, endless ugly, bland, chipped paint.

Rough carpet under the soles of her feet (greasier and dirtier than the floor of her cell), one foot in front of the other in front of the other in front of the other.

Felicity kept her arms banded tight around her waist, tugging intermittently at the borrowed—blood-speckled—shirt, pulling at the sleeves. Her teeth chattered.

There was at least one set of stairs.

She couldn’t remember if they went up, or down.

Just the cold, smooth shock of brief linoleum, the grit and catch of rough cement. Her steps bounced, jarring, and everything ached.

The air moved strangely out here.

More hallways. The carpet was blue-gray instead of brown now.

Except for that dark stain against the wall there.

She stared until they passed it.

Tommy spoke more than once. Quietly, calm and measured, like to a cornered animal.

Directions. Felicity followed them without answering, and the words washed over and through her without ever registering.

His fingertips remained pressed gently to the small of her back, a tether.

They saw no one else as they went.

Focus snapped hard and biting back into place when they stopped at a solid, foreboding door with a digital security panel—keypad display, retinal scanner, biometric thumbpad.

Tommy said her name and something else, but she heard it muffled and distant as if underwater. She jolted when his hand dropped from her back, gasping and jerking a step sideways when he moved around and in front of her. He blocked her view of the security panel with his body, and she stared at the back of his dark gray tanktop and wondered how quickly she could get her hand into his pocket, the knife out, the blade open—

He glanced at her over his shoulder, solemn and watchful, and she blinked.

A high, chirping tone and the door opened. Tommy turned aside and gestured her forward. His fingers found the small of her back again as soon as she was in reach, and she flinched as they passed through the doorway together. It shut behind them with a weighty clank, and the quiet beeping of security measures engaging.

Her step faltered, and Tommy’s fingertips pressed a little more insistently until she took another.

More hallways.

Felicity lost herself for a while.

—

“Felicity.”

Tommy’s tone suggested it was not the first time he had said her name, but it wasn’t his voice, but his hand transferring from her back to loosely grip above her elbow that brought her back.

She turned her head toward him, nostrils flaring with quick, short breaths and lips pressed tight—the split lower stinging. She pulled her arm away. He let her.

They had stopped in the middle of another hallway—Felicity’s brows scrunched over her nose in confusion at the warmer, almost blue-gray shade of the walls, the darker gray, slightly softer carpeting under her feet—and stood in front of another door. Felicity stared at it, blinking, cataloguing the security panel set at chest-height into the wall. It was nearly the same setup as the one at the previous entry they had passed through, but incongruously the door itself seemed… plain. Still steel, it looked less heavy, and had an actual doorknob, suggesting it wasn’t fully automated.

Slowly, pulling in a steadying breath, Felicity turned to Tommy, fighting not to wrap her arms around herself, fighting to keep her hands at her sides, at the ready. Swallowing thickly, her voice came out rough and very small. “Where are we?”

Tommy held her gaze watchfully, lashes sweeping down and dark as he stepped forward and laid his palm on the sensor pad. It beeped, and he shifted to hide it from her view to type in a code. “My quarters. It’s just for now.”

Felicity just stared at his back, uncomprehending. She heard the words, she knew what they meant. They just didn’t make any sense.

The door lock signalled its release, and Tommy curled his fingers around the knob. He opened the door, pushed it inward, and stood aside, eyes turning to Felicity and subduedly gesturing her forward.

She pulled in two deep, steadying breaths—which shook—and stepped forward, her eyes a constant flicker from the doorway—dark inside, still, no details, why should she go in, why should she _trust_ him?—and Tommy, who did not look away.

As she drew even with him and crossed the threshold, she shrank as far from him as she could get, all but pressing herself into the doorjamb as she went.

Tommy opened his mouth and inhaled. He closed it without saying anything, and looked away.

Felicity stopped just inside, but Tommy’s fingertips to the small of her back again jolted her forward another couple of steps. She looked back at him as he stepped through the door, reaching for a lightswitch on the wall before closing the door behind him.

Her heart tripped and beat faster.

The lights raised quickly from darkness to dim to normal illumination, and as Tommy leaned back against the door for a moment—head tipped back, eyes closed, chest rising with a deep breath—Felicity took in her surroundings.

His quarters, Tommy had said. He had told her before that he _lived_ here. That her prison was his home. Still, she wouldn’t have imagined… this.

It was jarringly _normal_.

She was in one large, open space. Directly in front of the door was empty carpet, but several feet in front of her stood a simple kitchen table, a chair on either side, the floor beneath linoleum tiling. The table appeared to be made of wood. An open kitchenette was beyond it; there was a refrigerator, a sink—empty—and a small microwave.

To the left, the floor sank a few inches in a living area, a faded navy armchair and matching couch arranged around a low coffee table. There was no television or entertainment system, but a slim bookcase stood against the far wall, its shelves sparse but populated with an eclectic collection of books.

Across the room, between the kitchen and the sunken living area, the mouth of a hallway led into darkness.

Tommy cleared his throat, and Felicity jumped in her skin like the sound was a gunshot. Twisting her fingers in the hem of the borrowed shirt, she turned and found him standing free of the door, one hand rubbing uncomfortably at the back of his neck. He looked up at her from under his brows and grimaced.

“Come on,” he straightened, extending a hand towards her. She flinched back from it, and the skin around his eyes tightened. “Just… over here, okay? We need to take care of you.”

She tracked him in incomprehension as he moved around her, stopping at the table and resting a hand on the back of the chair nearest her. He met her eyes and tilted his head towards the seat, brows twitching upward.

Slowly—not before glancing back at the door behind her, or at the dark hall past the table, or the kitchen behind Tommy where surely something could be found that she might use as a weapon— Felicity took a step forward; she swallowed, a harsh click in her dry throat, and took another.

Tommy waited silently until she stood in front of the chair. Shoulders tight and straight, spine stiff with tension, she held his eyes and he nodded softly.

He pulled the chair away from the table.

The legs scraped—a grainy squeak and groan—against the floor, and in the quiet the simple sound seemed amplified, the catch and drag of the wood on smooth linoleum rippling and scratching down Felicity’s back, raising every hair on her body as her eyes dropped and widened, mouth falling open and chin shaking.

The chair moved.

The floor seemed to tilt and Felicity’s vision swam; she fell back half a step, one hand pressed against her stomach, her eyes glued to Tommy’s hand on the back of the chair even as everything in her periphery seemed to get fuzzy and dissolve.

She couldn’t breathe.

Her chest was tight, lungs refusing to expand and draw in air that moved too freely in a room that was too large, too open, where the furniture wasn’t bolted down, and Felicity couldn’t _breathe_.

Black spots swarmed before her eyes, and Felicity’s knees buckled and gave beneath her. A strong grip caught her at the elbows, and her hands scrabbled for purchase, fingernails tearing, digging in as her weight was shifted sideways. The hard wooden chair hit the backs of her knees and she collapsed into the seat, a firm hand on the nape of her neck pushing her forward, putting her head between her knees.

“ _Breathe_ , Felicity. C’mon, come on, breathe,” echoed distantly in her ears.

Fingers circled her left wrist, and Felicity still couldn’t _see_ , gasped and seemed to barely draw any air, her throat squeezed tight, chest locked up—and suddenly phantom fingers, not her wrist, on her neck, pressing _pressing_ digging into her throat, crushing her windpipe—

“Breathe!”

Her hand was jerked up, the palm pressed—to Tommy’s chest, his hand, large and long-fingered, flattened over the back of hers, pushing her palm over his heartbeat.

“Breathe with me. Come on, in,” he inhaled deeply, his chest rising under her palm; she could _feel_ the air filling his lungs.

She just couldn’t fill _hers_.

He exhaled quickly, and suddenly his other hand was under her chin, cradling her jaw, lifting her head. His thumb brushed gently back and forth by the corner of her mouth, so startling she _gasped_ —a little rush of air. Her vision cleared slightly, a few of the shadows peeling back. Tommy’s face hovered in front of her where he crouched, brows pulled tight together in worry, eyes sharp and focused on hers.

She watched his lips—pale, a little chapped and dry, crusted with a seam of blood on the right—move as he quietly, intensely urged her again, “Breathe with me, Felicity. Come on. In.”

Mouth open, he pulled in a deep breath, his chest moving again under her hand—and she followed, shallowly, stuttering, but _breathing_.

His lungs expanded and collapsed under her fingers, and hers mirrored—inflating, deflating, rise, fall, in, out.

Slowly, so slowly, the devouring static of panic began to ebb away from the shore of her mind, and her head dropped forward again—resting for a moment in the palm of Tommy’s hand before he reluctantly withdrew his fingers and let her chin fall to her clavicle.

Felicity closed her eyes, tears welling up between the lashes, and drew in another breath.

Halfway in, it hiccuped.

“Felicity?”

Her shoulders shook, and another breath snagged, tangled up—hissed out as a high, tinny giggle.

“Hey, what…” Tommy ducked his head to look at her face, and Felicity lifted hers enough to fix her eyes on his chin.

“It… it moved,” she rasped, breaking the word off with another hiccuping laugh.

Tommy’s eyebrows began to pull together again, dark storms of concern clouding the blue of his eyes as he stared at her, lips parting in wordless confusion.

“The chair,” Felicity clarified, insistent. “It _moves_. Noth—nothing’s…” She sat up, gasping, cracking off another harsh giggle like broken glass in her throat. She turned her gaze from Tommy to dully scan the room. On a whisper, “Nothing in here is bolted down.”

Tommy’s sharp intake of breath drew her attention back to him—his expression stunned, sick, guilty. A miserable fire lit in her gut, and Felicity looked away, tugging at her fingers against his chest—feeling his heart race quick and stumbling—and then yanked her hand from under his when he didn’t give easily.

She curled her fingers in close against her stomach, one fingertip hooking in the gap between the buttons of her— _his_ —shirt.

Tommy gulped audibly. “Felicity…”

“No,” she whispered harshly. Whatever he wanted to say, she didn’t want to hear.

Not in that tone.

As if the cessation of her hysterical laughter had to be followed up, replaced, her breath hitched again, vision clouding over once more. Tears spilled hot and fast and heavy down her cheeks as she suddenly began to shake all over, chills running down her spine and chattering her teeth even as her face felt too warm.

“Shit,” Tommy breathed, standing. “Shit, just—hang on.”

She didn’t watch him as he moved around the table, but listened as he opened a cabinet, clattered glassware, and turned on the tap in the sink. It hushed white noise, and echoed in her ears, filled her head so that it murmured there even when he turned the faucet off, opened a drawer, and turned it on again.

Felicity sat and cried and bit her lips together against the little noises that wanted to escape with the tears.

She just couldn’t.

Immeasurable minutes later, Tommy’s knees crossed back into her vision, and he leaned down and turned one wrist, placing a hot, wet rag in her hand, and then showed her a glass of water he placed on the table behind her with a solid _thunk_.

He moved away, and behind her a second scrape of wood-on-linoleum sent her shoulders up around her ears.

He sat in that chair and he said nothing, just waited for her to cry herself out.

She didn’t know how long she cried for. Slowly, slowly a cool, cottony numbness spread through her head, her chest, and she lifted the rag—still warm—and began to mop at her cheeks. Pressed it to her eyes and for a moment only breathed.

Inhaling that novocaine calm like menthol smoke, Felicity lowered the rag to her lap and shifted around to the side, glancing across at Tommy as she picked up the waterglass and sipped slowly.

He slouched in the chair, turned sideways to face the living area. His hands loosely gripped the sides of the seat, his chin lowered and jaw set, eyes on the middle distance, legs stuck out long before him.

She stared at his profile and slowly lowered the glass to cup her hands around it in her lap. Voice a foreign, muffled croak, she asked, “What happens now?”

He flinched.

Tommy dug the heels of his hands into the hollows of his eyes, sighing heavily. Felicity stared at the split, bloodied skin of his knuckles.

“I… don’t know. Yet.”

She blinked at him, and he finally lowered his hands to turn and look at her. He winced.

“First things first…” he unfolded to his feet to take a couple nervous strides towards the hall, and it was only for a moment that she thought of throwing the waterglass at his head. He assessed her briskly from head to foot, eyes sliding quickly away after. “You sh—do you want to use the shower?”

Slowly, she tensed all over, fingers tightening around the glass, the tips blanching from the pressure. Her jaw creaked as her teeth locked together, nostrils flaring and eyes widening.

Tommy glanced at her again, stared a moment, and then deliberately lowered his eyes, his shoulders bunching in tension under the straps of his tanktop. Taking a measured breath, he spoke softly. “The bathroom has a door. It locks. From inside. If you…”

Felicity pulled in a long, shaky breath, held it and let it go. Her skin crawled at the thought of vulnerability. And then she remembered the guard sitting on her, touching her stomach, her back, stroking his knuckles down her throat.

She itched to feel clean.

She waited until Tommy looked back up at her, and nodded.

He exhaled relief, and nodded towards the hall.

Taking another long sip of water, Felicity set aside the glass and stood, the damp rag still clenched in one loose fist. Cautiously, she moved around the table towards Tommy, keeping watch on his hands, his feet. He stayed still, and said nothing as she drew even with him.

She stopped with just a couple feet of carpet between them, and waited.

Clearing his throat, Tommy shuffled his weight from one foot to another and stared vaguely over her shoulder. “I’ll, um. I can lend you something to wear, until I have someone bring your things here.”

From her cell.

She stared at him stonily. “They’re not my things.”

His chin dipped in the tiniest nod, and he ran his teeth over his bottom lip uncomfortably, but had nothing more to say.

Felicity’s eyes lowered to his hands, hanging at his sides, and focused again on his cracked, bloodied knuckles, the skin split over the sharp bones and crusting dark brown. Vividly she saw again his fists hitting Al-dhi'b in the face, over and over, fast, brutal strikes until the guard was unconscious. Saw the look in Tommy’s eyes that said he wanted to _keep_ hitting him, even after he stopped.

She wouldn’t thank him. Couldn’t.

But she did reach out and press the damp rag into his palm when he reflexively turned it up. He stared at it in incomprehension, brows knitting together, and then his eyes widened and he looked up at her in surprise, lips parting slowly.

He said nothing, and she felt only relief.

Swallowing hard, he nodded again and turned to lead her into the hall.

—

Tommy had paused half a step by the first door in the hall, then led her down to the next door in the opposite wall—the door at the end presumably being his bedroom. She shied away from that thought.

Before he let her into the bathroom, he darted in and quickly gathered a few things and, stepping back into the hall with a rolled towel that seemed oddly lumpy, gestured her inside.

The bathroom was bigger than the one in her cell.

The shower wasn’t merely a stall, but a tub with a showerhead and curtain, and a toilet between it and a small sink counter. The mirror above it reflected her image smooth and unwarped—real glass.

She stared at her wild hair and tear-streaked face—at the fingerprint-bruises blooming along her jawline, down her throat—only a moment before turning away.

“There’s, uh. There’s towels there,” Tommy said behind her. He leaned in the doorway, shifting his weight uncomfortably, and nodding to the shelf over the toilet where half a dozen pale blue towels were stacked.

Felicity stepped forward and grabbed one, inhaling sharply at how cotton- _soft_ it was. The towels in her cell had been little better than hand towels, thin and scratchy and short.

She suddenly, viscerally missed the luxuriously thick bath sheets she had at home.

“There’s shampoo and soap in the tub,” Tommy continued. “I’ll, uh… get things ready for you while you’re in here.”

Hugging the towel to her chest, Felicity turned to stare at him and refused to ask.

Clearing his throat, Tommy dropped his gaze. “Right. Anyways.”

He stepped backward into the hall. Felicity waited a moment, startling when she realized _he_ was waiting.

For _her_ to close the door.

For her to choose to shut the door and lock him out.

Sucking her bottom lip into her mouth, she shuffled one step, two, and laid her hand on the doorknob. She pushed it forward and looked up at Tommy, tensing—but he was already turning away.

She shut the door.

Feeling her lips twitch into a strange, small smile, she depressed the lock—such a flimsy mechanism to mean so much—and for a moment leaned her forehead against the wood, finally alone.

A sudden rap against the other side of the door had her startling backward til her butt hit the sink counter, towel clutched to her chest like a shield.

“Felicity?” Tommy sounded chagrined. “Sorry, I uh. I just… I have some clothes you can wear for now. If you don’t want to just…”

Felicity unlocked and pulled the door open a crack, looking out at Tommy suspiciously, but he stood a couple feet back with a stack of folded clothes in his hands. Chewing her lip, she reached out and snatched the clothing from him, shut the door, and locked it again without a word.

She waited until she heard his feet shuffling against the carpet away from the door before she stepped away from it again, and then waited still another few minutes before setting the clothes and towel atop the toilet lid.

Pulling the curtain aside on the tub, Felicity found herself almost disoriented by how _normal_ it was. The shower in her cell had been a tiny stall with no curtain, just a sheltering wall and an opening, with a floor that slanted inward to the drain at the center. The only controls were a button, which when pressed dispensed water that was almost searingly hot and over the course of ten minutes gradually cooled to frigid. The entire thing was maybe four feet by four feet. She’d banged her elbows washing her hair so often she’d stopped feeling it.

The water had shut off automatically after 18 minutes—she had counted, sixty second increments back to back to back—and wouldn’t restart again until an hour passed. The shower couldn’t be used more than twice in a day.

The tub in Tommy’s bathroom wasn’t especially large or deep, but she could fill it and have a perfunctory bath in it if she could find something to block the drain. There was the showerhead above, and below it the faucet, and a single knob over it to control the level of the temperature and water output. Licking her lips, Felicity put one knee on the tub lip and leaned in to turn the knob, slowly until a gush of water poured from the faucet, and then so it went from cold, to warm, to hot.

She shifted the temperature backward a little, pushed in the little tab under the knob to turn on the spray, and stood back.

She put her hands to the buttons holding her borrowed shirt together and willed her fingers to tug them open.

Swallowing deep breaths and a rising curl of nausea, she slipped the first button free of the eye. Then the next, and the next. She reached the bottom and closed her eyes  as she let the soft cotton dress shirt slither down her arms and drop to the floor.

Tucking her chin—swallowing around the soreness in her throat—Felicity opened her eyes and looked down at herself. The first thing she saw was the cut, dangling straps of her bra and tanktop, hanging down her front and brushing her abdomen where the sensation was suddenly intense, unignorable, tickling her bare stomach where Al-dhi'b had pushed her shirt up, run his palm—

Very suddenly, Felicity couldn’t bear to be in these clothes any longer.

Choking a whimper back behind gritted teeth, she undressed in a hurry, tipping over against the wall in her haste, pushing off and kicking out of her clothes and scrambling into the tub, under the hot water.

Blinking against the spray, she put her palms against the cool, moist tile of the wall and concentrated on sucking in air, head bowed and hair sliding in slow, dampening ropes against her neck and shoulders.

Beginning to shake—a constant, low tremor that seemed to start as a rattle in her chest before spreading outward to her limbs—she sank slowly down onto her folded knees, turning her head and belatedly pulling the curtain closed around the tub.

She clenched her jaws shut against the sobs and pleas and the names she couldn’t let herself beg for, lips trembling as she turned and sought out the two small bottles of shampoo and conditioner—god, it had been so _long_ since she’d had conditioner to use—in the corner against the wall, by the faucet. A slender bar of wax paper-wrapped soap rested in a shallow dish set into the wall.

Felicity reached for the soap first, then stopped.

Refusing to think about why, she grabbed the shampoo and squeezed a generous amount into her hand, working it into her hair and wincing as she picked apart the tangles, hissing when she found a small lump rising on the back of her head—

—where she had hit the floor as—

“No,” she croaked, squeezing her eyes shut.

She focused down on her breathing, let the sound of the water white out her mind, and washed her hair twice. She rinsed the suds and worked in the conditioner with the same focus, leaving it in to rinse out naturally when she finally took up the soap and tore off the paper.

She worked her way up from her feet with methodical, thorough efficiency, sitting in the tub just in front of the spray as she lathered up from her legs to her waist, swallowing thickly as she ran the slippery bar over her stomach and around to her her back—grimacing when she felt a tender bruise forming in the small of her back.

Felicity worked the soap over her arms and shoulders, staring at the wall ahead of her as she glided it down over her chest. Suddenly, the lather sliding down her sternum pricked and stung and pulled her mouth open in gasping, startling pain, the soap slipping from her fingers to clatter against the tub bottom as she looked down, cupping a shaking hand in the spray to pour water down her chest.

The soapsuds rinsed away and Felicity blinked past the stinging in her eyes to see there, in the center of her breastbone, shallow cuts barely deeper than scratches, red and puffy and carved thin and red, the caricature of a heart Al-dhi'b had drawn on her with his knife.

Lips shaking, she traced the curved lines with her fingertip to where they overlapped at the bottom point, her heartbeat hammering beneath. The skin was hardly broken; the lines were angry red, but didn’t bleed.

It wouldn’t even scar.

She gasped, flattening her hand over the cruel heart, and shut her eyes, the tears slipping down her cheeks burning hot even under the steaming shower.

Slowly, she folded over and cried into her scraped-up knees, hands with their torn fingernails curled over her rug-burned shins. Her sobs echoed in the tiled acoustics of the bathroom, underscored by the shushing spray of the water.

Felicity stayed there in the bottom of the tub, rocking herself a little, until the water ran lukewarm and her tears ran out, leaving her empty and exhausted. She stilled, her puffy cheek turned against her kneecap as she sniffled and shivered, eyes swollen and aching. Sitting up, she turned her face into the spray and shut her eyes, letting the cool water wash over her.

Finally, she picked up the soap from the floor of the tub again and washed her neck and face. Standing carefully, she stared dully down at her toes til she was rinsed clean, and shut the shower off. She wrung the excess moisture from her hair, pulled aside the curtain, picked up the towel and wrapped it around herself.

Sighing wearily, she looked for a moment at the floor and thought how much she’d like to just… sit down for a while. Dress later.

She wouldn’t get back up. She knew it.

Clenching her teeth, she stepped out of the tub and toweled off.

Turning her attention to the clothes on the toilet lid, she picked up the top article and let it unfold and hang from her fingers. It was a long-sleeved tee shirt, deep, faded blue. A man’s shit. Hesitantly, Felicity brought the cotton to her face and breathed in the smell of detergent and spicy cologne.

Tommy’s shirt.

Chewing the inside of her cheek, she pulled the shirt over her head. It hit her three inches down her thigh and she had to roll up the sleeves to free her hands, but it was soft and loose and warmer than anything she’d worn in weeks, and the collar lay just under her clavicle, covering that awful heart.

It was comforting in a… strange way, and she preferred not to think about it.

The second piece of clothing was a pair of gray sweatpants—also Tommy’s judging by the size. Felicity frowned dubiously, but stepped into them and pulled them up. She had to roll up the cuffs several times, and the waist was a little loose, threatening to fall off her hips, saved from it by her decidedly unmasculine curves.

She was pulling the drawstrings tight to secure the pants when her head jerked up, brows pulling together at a sound that carried over the droning fan of the automatic vent.

A buzzing, whirring…

...a drill.

What?

Tension coiling back tight in her gut, Felicity padded warily over to the door, catching her bottom lip in her teeth to keep from calling out to Tommy in question. She curled her fingers around the doorknob, hesitating—and then the drill screeched and stopped, and something thumped, making her jolt on her feet.

She would _not_ let fear control her.

Felicity turned the knob slowly, the lock clicking free, and held her breath as she began to pull the door wide—

—and yelped as it was nearly torn free of her fingers, jerked to a stop and dragged almost closed from the other side.

Instantly, she pulled at it again, panicked at the thought of being _trapped_ in here, in a space even smaller, more confined, she pulled on the knob, grabbed the side of the door and yanked—

“Felicity!” Tommy hissed through the inch of space, and his breath fanned across the backs of her fingers, making her reflexively snatch them back in.

“Let me out, Tommy, don’t _shut me in here_ , let me out, don’t do this,” she begged, demanded, tightening her grip on the knob, rattling it against his hold. “Don’t.”

His fingers curled around the side of the door for a moment. “I’m not, okay? I swear. I’m not, I just—you have to stay in here a little longer. Just a little longer. Please. I’m—I have to make some changes so you can stay here and I need—there are people here, Felicity, and I _cannot trust them_ , and I need you to just please, please stay in the bathroom just a little longer.”

He paused, and she still refused to let go of the doorknob, even as he withdrew his hand and tugged again from the other side.

“Please, Felicity,” he pleaded, voice low and urgent. “Just a little patience.” She stared at that inch-gap of space between the door and its frame, stomach twisting, and wished she could see his face, gauge his expression, if he could meet her eyes. He sighed, but it wasn’t exasperation; he sounded tired, maybe frustrated. “I’m not risking you again. Please.”

Felicity stared at the gap, mouth open, eyes wide, and then slowly looked down to the floor, wrapping an arm around her waist. Her fingers loosened on the knob, but he didn’t pull it away from her.

Inhaling quickly, she said softly, “Okay,” and let go.

There was a beat of silence, and then, “Thank you.”

He pulled the door shut. She turned her back and slid down to sit against it.

And waited.

—

She didn’t remember falling asleep.

She wasn’t even sure it could be _called_ sleep.

Felicity couldn’t be certain how much time passed after Tommy asked her to wait, but she thought it must have been over an hour. Sleep, rest of any kind seemed like something that would be far beyond her reach for… days. But she was clean, warmer than she could remember being since her own bed in her own home, practically drowning in Tommy’s clothes from neck to ankle—which was also more covered than she’d been in months. And she was just… hollowed out.

Perhaps it was no surprise that exhaustion caught up to her on the bathroom floor, numbing her mind past the murmur of thought or the hiss of memory. The background noise of tools and occasional low voices had faded into a static of which she was only tangentially aware, alert for change or threat, and slowly Felicity had curled over, arms tucked in her lap and cheek turned to her knees, eyelids lowering so slowly she hardly noticed the closing.

She drifted in place.

“Felicity.”

Tommy knocked softly on the door and Felicity jerked upright so fast her neck popped, a wince pulling at her mouth. She rubbed at her neck as she unfolded into a stand, surprised to feel her hair half-dry as it brushed across her knuckles.

“It’s just us now,” Tommy spoke through the door. “You can come out.”

Felicity bit her lip, gaze skating quickly away when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her eyes landed on the pile of her damp towel and discarded, mangled clothes, and she turned resolutely away from them to unlock the door.

As she pulled it open, Tommy backed up to the other side of the hall, giving her plenty of space to step just across the threshold. His eyes lowered to take in her clothes— _his_ clothes—and she pulled her hands into the over-long sleeves as his mouth ticked up at the corners.

For a moment, she thought he’d tease or flirt, for a moment it felt surreally like any of the countless visits he’d made to her before.

His smile shrank into nothing, and he nodded to himself. “I’ll have to get some clothes that actually fit you brought up.”

“You’re not getting the sweatshirt back,” Felicity blurted, cheeks warming at her mouth running away from her. Even so, she hunched into herself and curled her fingers around the hem of the shirt like he might demand it back that instant.

Tommy huffed in quiet amusement, raising an eyebrow at her. “What, you think it looks better on you?”

For some reason, the teasing line she’d half-expected before only made her flush deepen. She dropped his gaze, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “I’m sick of being cold all the time.”

The humor drained quickly from his face, and he swallowed as he nodded, tipping his head back down the hall. “Come on.”

He started ahead of her, and after a moment, she followed. They didn’t go far before Tommy stopped, turning towards her. She stopped about a foot away from him, eyes moving past him to the door he stood beside; it was the first room in the hallway, but the door itself was different than it had been before. A smaller-scale version of the security panel at the front door of Tommy’s apartments was freshly installed in the wall beside the door.

Her stomach sank.

“This will be your room,” Tommy began, scratching uncomfortably at his neck. “Just until I figure out what else to do. This isn’t permanent.” Felicity swallowed hard at the confirmation that he intended to make _permanent_ arrangements for her captivity. “But for now…”

He tapped his fist idly against his thigh, lips tucking as he turned to hide the security panel with his body, before opening the door inward and stepping aside. He looked at her and gestured her forward.

Unexpectedly, tears choked her throat and pricked at her eyes as she took a reluctant, heavy step forward, and then another. She tensed all over as she passed Tommy and over the threshold, bracing for the door to shut and seal behind her.

But it didn’t.

Whirling,  Felicity held her fists straight down at her sides, throat straining with fear as she looked to Tommy—but he wasn’t even looking at her. He leaned in the doorway, looking incongruously casual as he surveyed the room she still hadn’t even looked at.

“Let me know if the sheets need changing or whatever,” he shrugged with his mouth. “This room hasn’t really been used at all, didn’t need it but… it’s yours now.”

Brows furrowing, she turned away from him again, slowly, finally taking in her new cell. It was…

...a bedroom.

It was a bedroom. Felicity blinked in confusion, but in the middle of the medium-sized room—a good few square feet larger than her original cell—was a full-size bed, neatly made up in subdued blues, with a low, plain wooden headboard. There was a nightstand; no clock, but the kind of lamp that was part of the table. A short dresser stood against the wall to the left, a cloth hamper beside it; to the right was a small, shallow closet, empty, the sliding plastic door ajar.

The carpet under her feet was the same medium-pile, soft gray as the rest of the apartment. Perhaps most relievingly—if strangely—the walls were a muted cream, rather than the blinding blank white she had been staring at for weeks. There were of course no windows.

It looked not unlike a generic, bland hotel room.

Well. Except for the plaster dust and metal shavings littering the floor around the threshold, where the new, high-security door had been installed. She was actually surprised to realize there was in fact a doorknob on this side.

Taking a deep breath, Felicity lifted her eyes to Tommy’s, waiting for him to step into the hall and lock her in. He gestured to the bedside table with a tilt of his head instead.

“You’ll notice you have a lamp. Glass bulb and everything.” She blinked at him, and his lids lowered, lips pursing. “Let’s not pretend you couldn’t MacGyver _something_ out of that.”

She raised her eyebrows in silence.

He chuckled softly, shaking his head and glancing away, then back. “We also both know you know better by now, Felicity.” His smile faded. “You could waste both our time and your energy busting bulb for glass shards or fucking with the wiring, but you’re smarter than that.” He watched her chin jut out defiantly, and surprisingly, his eyes softened with… appreciation. “You’re not giving up. I know that. But you also aren’t going to be an idiot and waste what trust and leeway I can give you on a dead-end effort. So let’s just…”

He waved a hand dismissively.

“Fine,” Felicity croaked, wincing at the growing ache in her throat. His lashes fluttered, and she knew he was restraining himself from staring at the bruises decorating her neck.

“Which brings us to ground rules.”

What?

Felicity blinked, frowning. “What?”

Tommy smirked ruefully then straightened and nodded, businesslike. “When I’m here, your door stays unlocked. You can open it or close it, you can come into the kitchen or go to the bathroom or sit in the living room. If I’m out, or sleeping, you’re in here, and the door is locked.” He looked around the room, avoiding her eyes as he said, “My bedroom is off limits. It’s the door at the end of the hall. I have an en suite, so we won’t be sharing a bathroom.” He folded his arms, stared inscrutably at the scuffed toes of his shoes. “From now on, nobody has access to you at any time without me present.”

Felicity bit back an acidic retort, squeezing her arms around her waist and clenching her jaw.

“I do mean that,” Tommy spoke firmly, but softly. And yet still to his feet. “I can’t blame you at all if you don’t… if you can’t believe me.” He inhaled deeply and lifted his chin, meeting her eyes solemnly. “I’m sure talking about—what happened is the last thing you wanna do. Especially with me. So all I can say is…” he swallowed hard, and when he spoke again, his voice broke. “I am truly, truly sorry. I will be dead before anything like that happens to you again.”

Shaking again, Felicity chewed her lips and stared at him, stricken, frozen.

Tommy closed his eyes tightly, shook his head. When he opened them again, they burned with a cold, vicious intensity. With promise. “I swear to you, Al-dhi'b will face justice for touching you. He broke the League’s code, and the punishment will be _severe_. Letting you slit his throat would have been a mercy he doesn’t deserve.”

She looked away, baffled and disturbed by his fervid belief, and sharing none of it. She didn’t care if Al-dhi'b suffered or was tortured for hours or days. She only wanted him dead.

He exhaled gustily, clearing his throat. “Anyways. I’ll—I’m going to be in the living area for a while. I doubt if I’ll sleep anytime soon. So… if you want to get something to eat, or…”

“No,” she answered.

She looked up to see him nodding. “Right. Sure. If you change your mind…” He hitched a thumb in the direction of the hall, nodded again, and turned slowly on his heel to leave.

Staring hard enough to bore a hole in the carpet, Felicity breathed in through her nose sharply. “Tommy?”

He stopped and turned back towards her. “Yeah?”

“Al-dhi'b…” The word felt like glass shards on her tongue. “What does it mean?”

He hesitated. Then, softly, “The Wolf.”

She nodded, the words burning a brand into her mind as Tommy left.

He left the door open behind him.

Felicity stared at the view of the hall, dim-lit by lights from the living area, and something fluttered in the cage of her ribs knowing she could walk through that door or not, go down the hall or not, stay in here or not.

She shut the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to thank you all for your patience in getting this new chapter. I know it's been over two months since the last one, but writing that chapter and all it entailed took a lot out of me, for quite a while. Every single one of your lovely, kind, enthusiastic and thoughtful comments meant more to me than you could know in that time.


	12. War Drums (Go Back to Sleep)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains graphic references to torture, brief references to past child abuse, and an intense medical examination scene. These selections may be disturbing to some readers.
> 
> This chapter was absolute hell to write, my dears, but in the very, very best way. There's a lot of difficult stuff in the following 25 pages (which I hope makes up for the two month break in updates), but I want you to know that as the tension ratchets up, things are coming to a head. We draw closer and closer now to turning a big corner with Long Way Down as a series, and I want you all to know how immensely I have been enjoying this ride (still so far from over), and how incredibly grateful I am that each and every one of you has chosen to take it with me.

[ recommended listening ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ejsM0VF-Os)

 

The first week was the hardest.

It was also the most awkward.

Felicity was—understandably—traumatized by what had happened in her cell. Not that Tommy would use that word in speaking with her. He could all too easily imagine the scathing, defiant glare he’d receive for putting a name to her reaction. She’d bristle at it, find it condescending, demeaning.

But al-Dhi’b’s assault lingered on her, and not just in the bruises that slowly changed sickening, vivid colors on her throat, her back, in the scrapes on her knuckles and the carpet burn on her shins. Even in captivity, Felicity was an expansive personality, vibrant and fiery and clever-quick.

Now, she was a clenched fist and a closed mouth. Her shoulders hunched and her eyes alternately stared dully or darted rapidly to the slightest movement or shift of shadow. Doors opening, in particular, made her flinch, shoulders up and head whipping around. Her tension would ease after a moment of staring at him in front of the door, but only so much.

It seemed to help, Tommy thought, that she wasn’t confined to her room as long as he was in residence. This, however, presented a problem given his… other duties.

He could not afford distractions. Not now.

 _One down_.

Tommy sighed heavily as he strode down the halls, scrubbing his hands backward over his face—a tic he’d picked up from Oliver and might never shake—and rolling his shoulders under his crisp lavender buttonup.

No more dressing the part of the playboy he’d left behind, no more putting on eyeliner to blend into a club crowd. No more putting Annalise’s tongue in his mouth or her drugs in his veins. Tommy was relatively certain she didn’t know where her brother was holed up anyways. The League would have to find another way to fulfill that contract.

He could still smell Annalise’s perfume on his clothes, clinging to him like smoke. He wanted nothing more than to wash the job off in the shower.

He had a stop to make first.

Al-Dhi’b’s cell had no guard. The hall where he was kept was secure-access, and only Tommy had authorization. He couldn’t be sure who here accepted his command, unconventional as it may be, and who, like al-Dhi’b and the man who had stood guard with him that night, resented it enough to defy him.

To break League code.

Resentment, even a certain amount of disloyalty and friction, Tommy had expected. But it wasn’t mere _friction_ that had led al-Las’ah to cover the door while al-Dhi’b went into Felicity’s cell intent on raping her. It wasn’t _resentment_ that motivated al-Las’ah to take his own life in his cell before Tommy could find out who else had known, or helped, who might threaten Felicity again. It was betrayal.

Betrayal he could neither allow nor afford.

Tommy drew in deep, even breaths as he moved down the secure hallway, shaking out his hands, throwing back his shoulders and jerking his chin up. Slowly, his eyes deadened, cold and flat, mouth thinning in a humorless line as he compressed himself into tight, vicious necessity. His stride rolled, predatory, lids lowering to half mast and head moving side to side to loosen his neck.

Stopping at the door in the middle of the hall, Tommy drew in and released one more deep breath through his nose, everything inside him settling to a calm, deadly quiet. Making quick work of the lock panel, the door—heavy, thick metal, icy to the touch down here—clanked open and Tommy pulled it open, chin tipping back in lazy patience as the lights overhead raised slowly from the deep, entombing dark.

Al-Dhi’b’s cell was none of the stark but simple comforts Felicity had been installed in.

The walls and floor were rough cement—darkened with pooled and splattered stains—and the room was unfurnished.

Excepting, of course, the bolts in the walls, floor, and ceiling. Today, the Wolf’s chains were hooked to the ceiling and walls to the right and left. Arms spread eagle, his toes were suspended maybe half an inch off the floor. If he stretched his feet—bare—down just a bit, he could almost support himself on the balls of his feet.

And when he weakened and sagged, the chains on the walls and ceiling would drag at his manacled wrists, at the rough harness chafing tight around his torso. Al-Dhi’b was naked, blood dried in rusty trails down his skin. He stank of sweat and fear, and of the foul waste streaking down his legs.

Tommy stood just inside the doorway, posture loose and easy, hands sliding into his pockets as he stared at the Wolf and waited. Slowly, the traitor lifted his head, lips twitching in a silent snarl. One eye was swollen shut, the other ringed with bruising, the brow above it split and crusted over dark red. His nose was broken, his lips all but pulped. They skinned back over his gums, showing the vacant holes where he had lost two teeth. He glared with all the hatred he could muster with his one good eye.

Tommy smiled.

“Pitiful. Really.” He sighed, exaggerated, and took a loping step into the room. Cruel satisfaction spread through him as the Wolf—now more a beaten dog—tensed, shivered.

Baring his own teeth in a hollow-eyed grin, Tommy withdrew his hands from his pockets. With his right, he opened al-Dhi’b’s own switchblade, the overhead light dancing prettily on the blade. The chains rattled as al-Dhi’b shifted the centimeters away that his restraints would allow.

Moving close, Tommy snatched the hair at the nape of the Wolf’s head, jerking his head up and exposing his throat. He laid the flat of the blade against al-Dhi’b’s jugular, smiling into his eyes and rolling the blade gently—edge, flat, edge, flat—up and down the side of his neck, drawing the point along the ridge of his clavicle and resting it in the hollow of his throat. “Let’s see if you’ve remembered any names today.”

—

Tommy shut the door to the apartments quietly behind him, his hand wrapped in the end of his sleeve to avoid smearing blood on the door. There was enough blood on the shirt already to be a lost cause anyways.

Sighing, Tommy moved towards the hallway, fingers working down the shirt buttons as he went, stripping to his undershirt. Shrugging out of the buttonup, he noticed a faint staining of red over the stomach of his tanktop, no doubt soaked through from the over layer. He swore, plucking at the fabric as he entered the hall.

“Tommy?”

He stopped as he drew even with Felicity’s door, her voice muffled and wary on the other side. Sighing again, inexplicably exhausted, he laid a hand against the door and dropped his forehead against the cool wood. “I’m h—” He caught the word in his teeth, jaw clenching and a queer panic flashing in his chest around the shape of that one syllable. He swallowed it, chose another. “It’s me. I’m back. Just… give me twenty minutes, gotta hit the shower.”

He waited a beat for her to respond, but beyond the sound of her feet shuffling backward against the carpet, she gave him no answer. He tapped his fingers lightly against the door, nodded his chin, and moved on to his bedroom.

He shed his clothes, eyes lingering momentarily on the bed. Desire for sleep warred with the fear of what would find him there, and he turned his back on the problem for a while longer, moving into the bathroom and turning the taps.

The heat of the shower hit his back, stinging. Tommy leaned his forearm against the shower wall, breathing the steam with his forehead against his wrist. He left reddened condensation beading down the wall when he turned under the spray.

As he scrubbed with an old toothbrush at the blood caught in the beds of his nails, Tommy tried to settle the writhing tangle of frustration, anger, paranoia, and nausea in his belly. He’d spent an hour cutting into al-Dhi’b, and for nothing more than to know that ar-Rāqiṣ _hadn’t_ been in on it.

He wanted to believe that meant she was someone he could trust here. The truth was that he was learning that he couldn’t trust anyone. That the bond of the League and the sanctity of the Code was perhaps a fairy tale he’d been reading himself to sleep at night. There was poison in his ranks, a snake’s bite waiting to strike him the moment he lowered his guard. The only way he might identify any of the vipers was to keep carving up the Wolf.

Torture was no rarity in League life. It was in the basic skillset of every assassin, whether they were the one wielding the tools or the one under the knife. Some had a taste for it; all had to at least develop the stomach for it. Part of training, even, was withstanding torture. None could come to their names unscarred.

Tommy ran the soapbar over his chest, down his stomach. He stood behind the blade now, just as he had done his time under it—

_Tight straps pinning his wrists to the cold table, the scalpel biting, biting deep, opening up his gut—_

The soap clattered into the bottom of the tub, Tommy’s vision flashing red and collapsing into a pinpoint focus of pink-red water swirling into the drain as he fought against the simultaneous sensation of cold metal under his back, and hot water beating down on his head and shoulders.

_No one could come to their name unscarred._

_Tommy had done his time under the knife_.

Hadn’t he?

Water sluiced down his abdomen, rinsing away lather and showing smooth, unblemished skin. So few scars, he had so few scars.

But _he had done his time under the knife_.

He remembered, he remembered. Slicing pain, digging fingers, the snap of bones, throat burning raw from screaming, skin shredded and cut to ribbons over and over and over and over and—

He remembered. Didn’t he?

Tommy’s knees hit the bottom of the tub hard, teeth gritted, chest heaving and eyes squeezed shut as he tried to concentrate. He had done the training. He _knew_ he had. He didn’t know why he had so few scars. Every time he tried to remember specific moments, his mind went static and slid sideways under his focus.

Or these sudden moments of terrible, inexplicable clarity sprang upon him, drowning him in intense sense memory, firing agony in his gut, his bones, his throat like it was happening _now_ . Cold metal under bare skin, stiff leather pinching at his joints, a muzzle too tight on his jaw, the slow, horrifying _pull_ as his fingernails were tugged, dragged, _ripped_ away—

But when had he ever been strapped to a medical table? When had he been cut into like a cadaver if not during his torture resistance training? Why was he _so_ sure these were not those memories?

Were they even memories?

Breathing in deliberate, measured breaths, Tommy snatched up the soap bar and slowly stood to his feet, jaw clenched as he hurried through the rest of his shower. Questions and uncertainty whispered at the back of his mind, chewed at his edges like hungry dogs as he stepped out of the shower and towelled off.

He _couldn’t afford_ these questions, not now, couldn’t afford distraction, couldn’t afford to trust, couldn’t afford to misstep, couldn’t afford to be weak.

His life depended on it.

So did Felicity’s.

Tommy dressed slowly in sweats and a black tank shirt, water dripping down his neck from his hair as he turned his worries to Felicity with a quiet, guilty relief.

He had brought her here. She was his primary mission, his purpose, both in attempting to assess her for assimilation into the League, and her safety.

He had promised her no one would touch her.

(No one but him.)

The Wolf had made him a liar. And now Tommy found himself with his back to the wall, an enemy behind every face around him, trying desperately to cover Felicity, reorienting his purpose from captor, manipulator to… protector. It was a strange and incongruous shift in dichotomy.

Keeping her so close was supposed to be temporary.

Draping the damp towel over his shoulder, Tommy went back into hall and to Felicity’s door. He rapped his knuckles firmly against the wood, paused for her quick “ready”, and disarmed the lock. He stepped back.

The door cracked open, then swung wide slowly. Tommy leaned back against the wall across, one ankle crossed over the other, left hand circling his right wrist. Felicity met his eyes and he offered her a small, tired smile, tight around the eyes.

She looked so damn _small_ in his clothes. For just a moment, she reminded him of Thea.

He cleared his throat. “Hey. You hungry?”

Sighing like she was begrudging the confession, she nodded. “Starving.”

Tommy tipped his head towards the kitchen. “Come on, I can put us something together.”

He pushed off the wall and headed down the hallway without waiting for her. She could follow him or not. The shuffling of her feet on the carpet said she followed, and a little tension eased out of his shoulders. “Sorry I was gone so long today. Had some things to take care of. I should be around more now, though.”

He exited the hall and tossed his damp towel at the couch before moving into the open space of the kitchen, stopping in front of the fridge and opening it to eyeball the contents. Glancing over, he saw Felicity pull out a chair at the table and turn it towards him before taking a seat.

“Why?”

Tommy paused, blinking, as he reached for a head of lettuce on the bottom shelf. Straightening, he turned to her, brows screwed up in confusion. “Why will I be around more? I thought you’d prefer to spend less time locked in your room.”

She pursed her lips, fingers twisting in the cuffs of the sweatshirt sleeves. “No, I mean why are you sorry? Why do you _care_ what I prefer?” His heart thumped hard in his chest at her bluntness, guilt and unease squirming in his gut as she narrowed her eyes at him. “You never did before.”

Flexing his fingers on the top of the fridge door, the cold air rolling in waves against his front and a strange heat compressing his head, Tommy swallowed hard and stared at the freezer door. His lips parted slowly, words and reasons and excuses and _nothing_ bottling up in his throat, swelling his tongue.

_Why why why why why_

Felicity stared at him, waiting, and Tommy could only wrestle with the unease sitting in his gut. Clearing his throat, voice coming out smooth even though it felt… rough, dragged, ragged, he bent and retrieved the lettuce. “It’s different now.”

He didn’t look at her as he collected more ingredients from the crisper, but tension radiated from her direction.

“Different how?” she asked, her tone challenging, brimming with a crackling undercurrent of anger. “Different because someone _you_ left at my door tried to—”

She bit the sentence off with a click of teeth, and he quickly turned to look at her, his gathered food items held in one arm as the fridge door swung soft and slowly closed. Tommy swallowed thickly against the confusion and rage that bubbled up his throat, shoving it down, down; it had no place right here, right now.

He turned away from her piercing, accusing stare, opening the freezer and pulling out a plastic bag of grilled sliced chicken breasts. Breathing carefully deep and even, he turned aside to set his armload on the kitchen counter, movements unhurried and methodical as he pulled a skillet from an overhead cabinet and switched on the big eye on the stove. “Yes,” he said soft and clear. “Because of that.”

Her sharp intake of breath slid like a knife between his ribs.

_Quick deep cuts, slicing wide and long and into the meat, into the muscle, scrape the bones—_

Tommy blinked, hands freezing on the resealable zip on the bag of chicken, heart tripping, thudding, restarting too fast as he cautiously pulled the bag open. He cleared his throat. “It’s just… different now, Felicity.” He clenched his teeth, jaw flexing at the tension climbing up his spine as he thought of how _hostilely_ different everything outside the door just beyond Felicity and kitchen table had become. How different everything in the short but infinite space between him and her at that table had become. “Everything is different now.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she answered quietly.

“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed lightly, turning to pull utensils from a drawer by the fridge. He looked up and met her eyes guardedly. “But that’s how it is.”

She subsided into silence while he heated the sliced chicken breast in the skillet, though he could feel her eyes tracking him as he pulled down bowls and prepped the salads. They only spoke again when he asked if she’d like a drink, brief, perfunctory words. He brought both their bowls and a Coke for each of them to the table as Felicity turned her chair back into position. He caught and held his breath at the way she went stiff and leaned slightly away from him as he set her meal before her. She didn’t relax again until he was seated across from her.

Felicity stared at her salad as Tommy dug in, then switched her attention to the can of soda beside it and licked her lips. She reached for the cold, perspiring can, fingers hesitant on the tab before sharply pulling it back, the snapping aluminum cracking sharply in the quiet air.

The knowledge of exactly how long it had been since Felicity had had nearly anything but water and ham and cheese sandwiches dropped through Tommy like a stone.

She sipped at the Coke and let her eyelashes flutter closed, breathing a soft sigh with her lips still on the can. Tommy paid studious attention to foraging through his greens for a grape tomato to spear with his fork, giving her this moment as if she were unobserved.

Slowly, she picked up her fork and meticulously gathered a bit of everything in the salad onto the tines, dragging it along the bottom of the bowl to coat it all in a further brush of the vinaigrette he’d tossed the salad in. She let the fork hover over the bowl, nibbling at her lower lip as she seemed to steel herself for the first bite.

Felicity glanced up at him, and Tommy quickly refocused his attention on his own soda, steadfastly not looking up again until he felt her gaze slide off of him.

She put the fork in her mouth, teeth clicking against the metal, and held it there, a breath escaping her nose in another little sigh. She pulled the fork free and seemed to hold the food on her tongue, savoring the flavor. Slowly, like she couldn’t quite help it, Felicity’s lips curved into the smallest, most heart wrenching smile.

Warmth spreading in his chest, Tommy’s own mouth curled in answer.

—

The next two weeks were a strange balance of quiet settling and screaming violence.

Excepting when he spent time carving the Wolf and scouring his ranks for unrest, Tommy spent as much time as possible in residence at his apartments. The less time she spent confined to a single room, the more Felicity seemed to slowly unfold around him. She jerked to attention less on a hair trigger, though she stayed on constant alert. They spoke little, though Tommy tried.

As much as their relationship had previously been based on conversation, on back-and-forth, it now seemed firmly rooted in silence. If Tommy asked her questions, Felicity responded with short, brusque answers, her tone always guarded, suspicious, or belligerent. It felt like walking a tightrope between giving her space and silence and what limited freedom he could offer, and yet presenting her with every possible available choice—pushing her to decide what she ate, when she ate, if she would rather stay in her room or join him in the living area—attempting to undo some of the damage he feared might be slowly eating away at her.

Whenever he stood still long enough, guilt climbed down his throat and sat in his chest, in his gut, for what had nearly happened to her—for what _had_ happened to her.

What was worse was not all the guilt was over the assault. He found himself, for the first time, questioning what _he_ had done to her. Until the moment Tommy had thrown open the door to Felicity’s cell and seen al-Dhi’b on top of her, Tommy had not even _once_ doubted his purpose in taking her from her home, keeping her captive— _stealing_ her from her life. It wasn’t that he didn’t think it was _wrong_ —it just didn’t matter. Her captivity and disappearance from Starling City served a greater purpose for the League, and Tommy had known, had been sure in every bone and fibre that he, too, served that purpose, that wrong or right it was _his_ purpose.

He was less and less sure by the day.

As Felicity slowly familiarized herself with his living quarters, as she scanned and alphabetized his bookshelf and continuously, oh-so minutely moved his furniture around, an inch or so every day, she wore at his certainties and convictions, an attrition that ebbed and flowed like a tide.

They shared meals, and halfway into the second week she stopped holding her cutlery in her hands for a moment before eating as if she might make weapons of them instead. Sometimes she stayed for hours in her room after he disarmed the lock, and sometimes she walked so quickly down the hall into the living area he expected to see fire licking at her bare heels. Occasionally, he caught sight of her flexing her toes in the thick, soft pile of the carpet, or shrugging deeper into her too-large clothes like she might disappear into them if she just pulled her fingers further into the sleeves and tucked her chin into the collar a little more.

Yet still he locked her in her room each night and again after breakfast so he could go whittle pieces off the man he had brought into her life and failed to keep out of her cell.

He was beginning to feel stretched too far in straddling this line, like something would soon have to give. But he wasn’t able to shove Felicity back into a box—literal or figurative—or unbind from his framework his loyalty to the League. Without the League, he would still be dead. Without what they had made him, he would be weak, alone, directionless. He belonged to the League and the League was where he belonged. He had worked too hard, done too much to let go so easily when he was so close to truly, finally _earning_ his place.

There was a war inside of him, waged by nightmare-fragmented memories and fervid belief, by guilt and by loyalty. At night, battles tore him in pieces; during the day, he smothered it in the work of his hands and Felicity’s quiet presence.

At the end of her third week in his apartments, Felicity read in the living area, draped sideways across the armchair so she faced him in the kitchen—and the door—a fat hardback open against her thighs while Tommy rinsed dishes in the sink. The hush of the water and the occasional, dry whisper of turned pages settled over them, filling the space from wall to floor to ceiling with an unexpected easiness. A fork slipped out of his soapy hands and clattered in the basin, and Felicity barely glanced up.

His shoulders and back felt looser than they had in weeks.

Squeezing excess soap from the rag, Tommy let a low hum build in throat as he scrubbed congealed oatmeal out of a bowl, his mind pleasantly static. Slow and lazy-warm, the hum swelled to a melody, and his lips began to shape and breathe half-syllable words until he was singing quietly. He realized what he was doing in the sudden silence after turning off the water and cut off with a clearing of his throat, warmth creeping up the back of his neck. Surreptitiously, he glanced over at Felicity.

She was slouched even deeper in the armchair, fingers curled around the edges of the book cover, face invisible below the bridge of her nose behind it. She was staring right at him, looking over him thoughtfully, just… watching. There was very nearly a smile in her eyes.

Clearing his throat again, Tommy tossed the dishtowel on the kitchen counter, and decided now was as good a time as any.

Rubbing at the back of his neck, he padded barefoot out of the kitchen, stepping down into the sunken living area. Felicity followed him with her eyes, still hiding behind that book, all humor disappearing into wariness. He sat at the end of the couch closest to the armchair and met her eyes, lifting his brows and gesturing for her to lower the book. She did so with pursed lips.

“So listen,” he began, and Felicity’s eyes narrowed. “There’s something we need to do. I should have done it earlier than this but I’ve been…” he sighed, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees, damp hands rubbing over each other. He looked at them and for a moment it was blood, not water, in the creases of his palms. “Distracted.”

Felicity began to tense, closing her book and tucking it against her stomach as she drew her knees over the arm of the chair, folding her legs to her chest so she could turn to face him. He tipped his head to one side, holding her eyes while she sat with her back straight and shoulders high.

“I need to take you to get checked over by Dr. Malik. You may remember her.”

Felicity’s reaction was instant. Her eyes widened, lips going thin and bloodless as she clenched her teeth behind them. Her fingernails scraped over the hardboard cover of the book she held, and her nostrils flared with quick, shallow breaths. Her face slowly flushed, the color deep against the wild curls framing her cheeks.

He expected her to refuse.

Instead, she demanded, “Why?”

Tommy sighed, rubbing one hand across his mouth. “Because you were hurt, and I should have had you checked over for internal damage immediately. Because your situation has changed here, and you may need different things. Because you’ve been here for almost three months, and I’d prefer to keep you healthy.”

Felicity stared at him, her color slowly returning to normal as she consciously managed her breathing. Her eyes dropped to her knees and Tommy waited while she swallowed hard, chewed at her bottom lip. Finally, she brought her gaze back to his and asked, voice wary and challenging, “Just a health checkup? No drugs? No tying me to chairs or handcuffing me to bedrails?”

Tommy’s eyelids flickered as he suppressed a wince. Traitorously, his voice caught in his throat. “No. None of that.”

Jaw squared and eyes bright, she lifted her chin, holding his eyes. “Swear it.”

“I promise—”

“ _No_ ,” she cut him off sharply. “I said _swear_ it. Swear it by that Code you love so goddamn much. Swear it on whatever ‘honor’ you think you have.”

Ducking his chin, he let his eyes slide closed and nodded slightly, pressing down, down on the squirming unease in his belly, whispering those quiet midnight uncertainties about the Code, his honor, and anything else he might have sworn by. Opening his eyes again, he raised them to meet hers and nodded more firmly. “I swear. By the Code, and on my honor. Just a health checkup.”

She searched his eyes for a long, intense moment, leaning forward as if to see if he would shrink back from her. He stayed right where he was, and he met her stare for stare. Finally, she gave the smallest of nods before collapsing against the back of the chair with a ragged sigh.

Wedging the book between the seat cushion and arm, she ran her hands over her face and back into her hair, briefly gathering and holding the unruly mess at the nape of her neck before letting it go. Her eyes shone damply, and Tommy’s chest clenched as she rolled her gaze up towards the ceiling. “Do you trust her?”

He startled. “What?”

She slowly lowered her eyes to meet his. “You said—after the Wolf—is she someone you can trust?” She exhaled a shuddering breath. “To leave me alone with?”

Tommy’s lips parted, cold fear slithering through his gut. Why hadn’t he even _considered_ Dr. Malik as someone he could trust—or _not_ trust? Heartbeat tripping faster, he reached out as if to take Felicity’s hand, or touch her knee, but stopped short, curling his fingers slowly into his palm and settling it on his thigh. “I won’t leave you alone with her.” He swallowed. “If you want.”

Lower lip caught between her teeth, brows furrowed, Felicity looked at him with such profound uncertainty. Sighing, she looked away, nodding shallowly. He squeezed his fist to keep from reaching out again.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

—

Getting out the door presented an unexpected challenge.

They stood in front of it together, Felicity still dressed in his clothes and drowning-small inside them. She had pulled the drawstring out of the hood and used it to wind her hair up at her crown in the messiest, fuzziest knot of curls he had ever seen. It made the light, mousy-soft brown of her growing roots all the more obvious against the brighter dyed blonde, but more than that it drew attention to the clammy sweat beading up on the back of her neck.

“Are you ready?” he asked quietly at her shoulder.

“I need shoes,” she whispered plaintively, almost not meant for him to hear.

He dropped his eyes to her bare feet, toes small and pale against the carpet. It hadn’t mattered that she didn’t have shoes before. In all honesty, it had been by design. Her bare feet had been meant to make her feel more helpless, without resource, dependent. Beyond the manipulation, it hadn’t mattered, practically, that she was barefoot. A bird in a cage had nowhere to go.

This had changed.

Everything had changed.

Tommy made a mental note to find her some soft shoes.

Now, looking again at the naked vulnerability of the thin skin stretched over fine bones set a rising acid burn of anxiety spreading its roots from behind his lungs, tendrils constricting his heart and cording the muscles in his throat. Once he led her through this door and down the halls, Felicity would be just that exposed, open to threats from any and all sides. He could only cover her so far.

Tommy coughed, and Felicity inhaled deeply. “I’m as ready as I’m going to get. Let’s go.”

Drawing in a centering breath, he nodded, and shoved away the squirming fear that maybe _he_ wasn’t ready for this.

The trip through the halls felt horror-movie slow. Tommy tensed at every doorway they came upon, every bend in the hallway he couldn’t see around, his fingertips just barely resting at the middle of Felicity’s back to guide her ahead of him. Under his hand, Felicity stayed stiff as stone, and every time he caught his breath or his step fell more heavily, a minute flinch traveled through her body, up his arm. He needed to get it together. He was meant to be in control. To keep her safe.

And he was jumping at shadows like a hunted rabbit.

Inhaling as deeply and quietly as he could, he let a little of that dark, graveyard cold slide down his spine, pool vicious and calm in his stomach. He settled his shoulder, loosened his neck and lifted his chin, fingers resting slightly more solidly against the soft cotton of Felicity’s sweatshirt. Tether, connection, anchor.

He watched her fists uncurl enough to show the crescent indents her nails left in the meat of her palms.

They passed through the halls in silence, without incident. He had chosen their route through the facility so that they would be unlikely to encounter anyone else, and it made them seem entirely isolated, as if the circuitous collection of buildings was empty but for the two of them.

That would have been simpler. Or more complicated, perhaps.

Abruptly, they entered a section where the flooring was all glaring white linoleum tile,  and the temperature dipped sharply. Beside him, Felicity pulled her hands into her sleeves and shrugged more deeply into her sweatshirt as if she could hide from the cold.

Halfway down the hall, a door opened—Felicity’s step faltering and a low squeak in her throat he almost didn’t hear—and Dr. Malik stepped out, fit and average height, her long dark hair tightly coiled at the nape of her neck. She watched them with cool, assessing patience as they approached, a clipboard in one hand and the other in the pocket of her thigh-length white labcoat. Her deep brown eyes were a shade that should have been called warm, but her attention was sharp and clinical, too much like a scalpel for such soft, forgiving adjectives.

Felicity’s progress slowed immensely, forcing Tommy to clip his stride along with her. He could hear her breathing stutter and shake, and he pressed his fingertips more firmly against her back, trying to reassure her. Her back arched away from his touch.

“Ms. Smoak,” Dr. Malik greeted, her accented voice inscrutably mild. Felicity said nothing. Malik’s gaze slid to Tommy, and something about the equal cut of her focus pricked uneasily at the nape of his neck. “Mr. Merlyn.”

“Dr. Malik,” Tommy nodded at her, his tone deliberately unruffled, strong. _He_ was in control here. He was.

He _was_.

She smiled blandly, eyebrows arching upward, and gestured into the room she’d come from. “Shall we begin?”

Tommy clenched his jaw, wrestling for a swift, internal moment about whether to let Felicity enter the room ahead of him, or leave her alone with the doctor while he checked the room.

In the end, Felicity decided for him, squaring her shoulders and darting quickly through the door. There was a moment where his hand remained outstretched, his fingertips touching cold air.

Malik’s gaze settled on his hand and Tommy fought not to clear his throat, to lower his arm slowly to his side. The doctor met his gaze again, unreadable, and he glared. He strode quickly through the door ahead of her.

Felicity stood in the middle of the small, spartan exam room—not the one she had woken in after her interrogation, but very like it—with her arms banded tight over her stomach. She looked around with a distant, pinched expression, mouth flat and brows knotted together. She looked tiny and beaten down—like any moment she expected to be struck.

A jangling cord twanged in Tommy, dancing razors over piano-wire nerves. The dissonance rang and rang through him til it rattled in his molars, settled into a biting vibration under his skin. His breath froze in his lungs.

_Stupid! Little shit, how could—_

_Stand still! I’ll give you a reason to cry!_

_You are nothing. Nothing. An embarrassment, if your mother had lived she’d be ashamed—_

_No son of mine—!_

“Ms. Smoak, if you’ll be seated on the exam table, please.”

Dr. Malik moved around him, scribbling on her clipboard, to reach a rolling metal cabinet, and the ice closing Tommy’s throat cracked with a quiet cough. Felicity looked at him furtively, then reluctantly hopped up onto the paper-protected table. Her feet swung several inches above the floor, one foot rubbing over the other, toes curling as if trying to hide. Her back hunched, spine a curve of fear while Malik pulled instruments and trays from drawers.

Shaking himself, Tommy made a sharp gesture so she’d look at him, then tipped his head to the space behind the bench. She hesitated, then shrugged. Taking it as permission, he moved around the table to stand behind her and to the side, close enough to be present, but enough in her periphery she could keep an eye on his movements.

The doctor turned back to them, stethoscope around her neck, and raised an eyebrow at Tommy’s position. She made no comment. Stepping close, she flickered elegant fingers towards Felicity’s left arm. “If you would pull up your sleeve. No, above the elbow.”

She took Felicity’s wrist and measured her pulse in silence, turning aside to mark notations on her clipboard, repeating this when she pulled a blood pressure cuff from her coat pocket and wrapped it around Felicity’s bicep.

After Malik had finished listening to Felicity’s heart, she removed the stethoscope from her ears, and picked up her clipboard, scribbling efficiently as she remarked, “I’m told there was an incident in your cell. You were damaged?”

The glare Felicity shot her was so poisonous Tommy half expected the doctor to begin melting. Malik, however, didn’t even look up. Nor did she wait for an answer.

Looking up at Tommy, she flickered her brows upward in a reproach. “And why did you not bring her to me at the time of the assault? She might have been concussed. There could have been internal injuries.”

Tommy bristled and answered curtly. “I _am_ capable of assessing field injury, Dr. Malik. There were somewhat more pressing matters.”

The doctor clicked her tongue. “Ms. Smoak, I’ll need you to remove your clothing.”

Tommy and Felicity both reacted, Felicity recoiling and clutching at her shirtfront while Tommy leaned forward, bracing his hands on the paper menacingly to better glare down at Dr. Malik.

“Excuse me?” Felicity stuttered, while Tommy growled, “ _No_.”

A wrinkle formed between Malik’s brows and she traded a withering glance from Felicity to Tommy. She gestured towards a paper curtain on a rolling rod about Tommy’s height that stood against the wall. “Obviously I do not mean for you to disrobe right here.” She turned back to the cabinet and bent to pull something thin and folded from the bottom drawer. “Change into this gown so I may better examine the state of your injuries.”

Chin set churlishly, Felicity twisted to look at Tommy. He debated for a moment, then pulled from her deck. He shrugged one shoulder and let her decide what it meant.

Huffing through gritted teeth, Felicity hopped off the table and snatched the gown off Dr. Malik’s hands, back straight as she all but stomped to the changing screen and arranged it in the corner so she was well hidden.

While Felicity shuffled behind the curtain, Dr. Malik swiveled her attention to Tommy. Transitioning smoothly to Arabic, she asked, “There is progress?”

He lifted his chin, feet shifting his weight, and answered in kind. “There is always progress. But this was a setback.”

Malik hummed noncommittally. “Yes… you have moved her?”

Tommy nodded, eyes narrowing. This felt like an interrogation.

Dr. Malik tilted her head to one side, scrutinizing him. “That will present difficulties, of course. But she will rely on you. It must be a strain, however.” She stared, unblinking. It was highly unnerving. “You are well, Mr. Merlyn?”

He ground his teeth together, pulse beating in his ears and fists tightening against the sterile paper. Felicity shoving aside the screen, the metal rattling, saved him from answering. She was scowling, and if she’d looked small in his clothes, she looked… _fragile_ in the thin, shapeless medical gown. It somehow made Tommy all the more aware of the delicacy of her bone structure, the paleness and translucence of her skin, and the blue-purple-lilac veins so visible beneath. Her eyes were shadowed with poor sleep, lips chapped and all but bloodless.

Her right shin still bore the fading yellow-green of old bruises, and the left the thin, patchy brown scabbing of skin friction-stripped by carpet. She turned to hop back up onto the bench and Tommy was relieved the gown wasn’t open in the back.

“I will of course have to touch you,” Dr. Malik said in English, rubbing her hands together to warm them, “so if that will be difficult, I suggest you brace yourself.”

“Get it over with,” Felicity bit out sharply. The set of her chin and fire in her eyes reminded him that, however fragile she may _look_ , the truth was she was tempered steel at the core.

He couldn’t help but admire that.

The doctor pressed at Felicity’s limbs and ribcage to check for fractures or bone bruising, pressed her hips and a palm over her abdomen for swelling and pain. Her hands were brisk and clinical in their exploration, but still by the time she stopped, Felicity was shaking. She tried to suppress it with a locked jaw and stiff spine, but a slipped curl of hair bounced and trembled behind her head, betraying her.

“Follow the light,” Malik commanded, pointing a penlight at Felicity’s eyes and checking her pupils. “Adequate. Open your mouth.” Felicity let her shine the light down her throat, teeth clicking shut when Dr. Malik put the pen away. The doctor then lifted Felicity’s hands one after the other, peering at her nails, then gently took hold of her chin and tipped her face one way then the next. “Hmm. You appear relatively whole, though I am not sure you are entirely _healthy_.”

Tommy tensed, and Malik turned to snap at him, “Did the kitchen staff not add the supplements to her diet as I ordered?” Not waiting, she glared at Felicity. “Have you not been taking them?”

“I _have_ ,” Felicity snapped back, jerking her chin from Malik’s grasp. “I wasn’t exactly looking forward to getting scurvy.”

Dr. Malik clicked her tongue again, frowning in dissatisfaction. She turned back to the rolling cabinet and opened a drawer in the middle, fishing out a short, fat white pill bottle. Turning again, she extended the bottle imperiously to Tommy. “She’s to take two a day for the next two weeks, best to take both with the first meal of the day. Following that, one a day.”

Felicity snatched the bottle from Malik’s hand and Tommy’s eyebrows shot up, lips tucking as she spat, “I’m _right_ here.”

Malik looked at Felicity with contempt, who ignored her in favor of scrutinizing the label on the bottle. “As you can see, they are vitamins.” Her lashes flickered as if it took all her strength not to roll her eyes. “Now that you are assured I am not attempting to poison you, I would like to get a blood sample.” Felicity drew a breath and Tommy leaned forward on the table again, and the doctor gave in and rolled her eyes, cutting them off. “Do _not_ argue. The vitamins are a good place to begin, but a blood analysis will give me a better picture of any deficiencies that need correcting.”

Tommy looked at Felicity, and Felicity glared at Malik.

The doctor held out a demanding hand. “Your arm.”

Sighing loudly from her nose, Felicity set the pill bottle down on her far side so she could give Dr. Malik her arm. Malik efficiently tightened and tied off a rubber strap above Felicity’s elbow, tapped for a vein, and swabbed an alcohol patch.

Tommy watched Felicity's profile, her jaw set, chin held high. She watched Malik’s hands with grim determination—right until the doctor withdrew a syringe from her pocket and uncapped the long, slender needle.

Dr. Malik lifted the syringe, set the point of the needle against Felicity’s skin—and Felicity shut her eyes tight and turned her head away, a small squeak buried low in her throat. She reached out with her right hand, fingers snatching at Tommy’s atop the paper.

The breath rattling to a stop in his throat, Tommy stared down at her fingers, grabbing haphazardly at his hand, squeezing at just his pinky, ring, and middle fingers—holding on for dear life and yet an incomplete grasp. He swallowed hard and debated flipping his hand underneath hers, giving her a proper grip, squeezing back.

It was over before he took a next breath.

“It’s done, Ms. Smoak. Are you quite alright? The sight of blood sickens you?”

Felicity let go of his hand as if she’d never touched it, opening her eyes to look wanly down at the gauze Malik was taping over the tiny puncture. “Needles. I don’t like needles.” Still so pale, she looked up at the doctor with a face so stony and serious it was nearly chilling. “Seen plenty of blood.”

Malik disposed of the needle and pocketed the vial of blood without acknowledging the statement.

Exhaling shakily, Felicity turned to Tommy without meeting his eyes. “I’m putting my clothes back on now.”

He nodded, irrelevant as she hopped down and went back behind the screen.

Dr. Malik turned back to him, and something coiled tightly in Tommy’s gut, flaring his nostrils and squaring his jaw.

“She is doing better than one might expect,” Malik spoke again in Arabic. “All things considered. Better than al-Dhi’b, certainly. Will you leave anything of him to come for?”

Tommy’s upper lip twitched, a snarl. “What I do to him now is not half the reckoning he will face when he is returned to Nanda Parbat.”

Malik nodded surely. “He broke the Code, and he will pay its price. You do well to protect your asset so carefully after al-Dhi’b’s trespass. Perhaps you may yet salvage the objective she has charged you with. The girl certainly seems to be attaching to you. That spine of hers, however.”

The doctor clucked her tongue in disapproval, moving away to replace her tools in the rolling cabinet, and Tommy swallowed down an urge to tear out _her_ spine. It was ridiculous, this protective anger. She was only echoing assessments he had already made for himself. Felicity was connecting with him well, even if he hated how it had happened. But she was too stubborn, still, too angry.

Yet… he couldn’t stomach the thought of that fire going out in her.

What would she be? Hollow, cold. Scraped clean from the inside out. What would the League pour inside that shell?

“Mr. Merlyn.”

Tommy stood straight with a quiet gasp. Malik was standing directly in front of him—when had she crossed the room? She reached for him with one slender, feminine hand, and he recoiled.

The doctor tipped her head on one side, eyes narrowing. “Perhaps you should come back to see me soon. Alone.”

Felicity shoved the rolling screen noisily aside, once again drowning in oversized cotton. She caught Tommy’s eye and glanced pointedly at the door. He nodded.

“That won’t be necessary,” he answered Malik dismissively, in English. She frowned, and he slipped her gaze by holding out a hand for Felicity to hurry in front of. He put his fingers to the small of her back and something behind the notch below his sternum settled. “Do let me know when you get the results from that blood analysis.”

“Mr. Merlyn,” she protested irritably.

Tommy ushered Felicity ahead of him and out the door, and did not look back.

—

Three days later, the clothes Tommy had ordered in Felicity’s size had arrived. He’d deliberately chosen a variety, aiming at comfort, coverage. He eschewed repeating the spaghetti strapped shirts and yoga pants from her cell. Tee shirts, sweatshirts, and tanktops; sweatpants, leggings, even a couple pairs of stretchy athletic capris. The color range stayed muted, mostly in grays and blacks, a couple dull browns.

He avoided any shade of green.

She seemed pleased to have clothes that fit—and that kept her warm. And yet, she still refused to give back what she’d borrowed from him, and he didn’t ask. When a day later he brought her thick socks and two pairs of black, soft slippers, she grinned before tucking the corners of her mouth sternly down.

And yet, later that night while she read in the armchair, he caught her rubbing her socked feet together, a curl in the corners of her mouth.

“Mind if I?” He interrupted her, gesturing at the floorspace between the couch and armchair.

Felicity looked up at him, brow furrowed in confusion at his unusual ensemble—fitted tank, tight athletic pants, feet bare—and shrugged one shoulder.

Tommy nodded, taking it as agreement, and moved to push the coffee table well out of the way before dropping to his hands and toes, facing away from Felicity as he started a silent count of pushups. He could feel her staring for a long moment, but after minutes had passed, the sound of turning pages began again and he grinned at the carpet. He couldn’t very well leave her alone out here if she didn’t want to stay in her room, so she could share the living area long enough for him to break a sweat.

They subsided into easy quiet broken only by the whisper of paper and his occasionally breathed counting. He tucked a fist in the small of his back after the first hundred, alternating arms after another. He’d been spending so much time in-quarters lately he hadn’t been to the training rooms more than the bare minimum, and the pleasant burn starting in his muscles felt like a release. Reps completed, he lowered himself onto his stomach for a moment, then rolled onto his back, elbows tucked in.

Setting his feet, he launched into crunches, elbows up, hands curled, keeping his breathing even and measured. This simple workout was no substitute for hitting the training rooms or sparring with the other League assassins based with him, but he wanted, _needed_ to do _something_ to keep in top form. Slowing at all could cost him. Cost _them_.

Too much.

Glancing up, Tommy found Felicity had lost interest in her book, holding it half-closed while she stared at him—or more accurately, at his arms—mouth a little agape and eyes hooded and unfocused. Surprise flashed through him, followed swiftly by a smug little curl of satisfaction. He licked his lips, helpless against a small, amused smirk as he deliberately flexed his biceps to watch her eyelashes flicker at the motion.

Swallowing a chuckle, he finished his reps and leaned forward, resting his forearms across his knees and ducking his head to catch Felicity’s eyes. She startled and looked instantly down at her book, flushing. He bit back a teasing comment about catching her checking him out, deciding to let it go, but she glanced back up, her eyes sliding to his left shoulder.

“How did you get that one?”

Tommy’s smile went rueful. Tapping two fingers against the two-inch diagonal white line that started at the ball of the joint and ended under his shirt just below his collarbone, he asked her, “You really want to know?” She still stared at it, solemn now, and nodded. He sighed. “Knife. Some of the people I’ve killed tried to kill me back.”

Felicity met his eyes then, unflinching. “How many people _have_ you killed?”

He refused to hesitate in his answer, to adorn it with details or justifications. “Eleven.”

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth contemplatively, let it go, still holding his gaze. “And do you have a scar for each of them?”

He snorted, folding his legs against the floor and bracing his hands behind him, leaning back. “No. I don’t think I’d be very good if every contract was a fight for my own life.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, gaze moving to his knuckles. “Your hands?”

He lifted his hands to show the backs, covered in tiny, nearly-invisible scars from wrists to fingernails. He was a little surprised she’d noticed them, most of them were so faint. “Any sort of mastery with a blade takes practice, and practice requires mistakes.”

Her brows pulled together, as if something bothered her. “And that’s it? You’ve died, come back, killed eleven people, and that’s all the scars you have?”

He could show her the bullet graze scar on his ribs. Or the little puckered mark on his lower back where one had to be dug out of him. Point out the skinny line hiding right at the edge of his hairline over his left temple from getting his head slammed against a table. Tell her about the place he got stabbed in the right thigh. Try to make her laugh with the story of the time he got sliced across the asscheek in training.

Instead he tapped his fingertips against his chest and sat up straight, raising his eyebrows to make sure he had her attention. Carefully, he gathered the bottom of his tanktop and raised the hem slow, tugging his shirt up over his stomach, ridged and unmarked, to pull it up sharply at his chest. “That,” he said, glancing down at the large, white, jagged star under his breastbone, “is where the rebar came out of me. It missed my heart, you see, or I’d have died quicker. Nah, I bled out. Or I drowned in my own blood, because it _did_ nick a lung. I distinctly remember breathing feeling like when you roll your arm over bubble wrap. But I’m not actually that sure which killed me first.”

Felicity pulled in a long breath through parted lips, her eyes round and fixed on the scar. He wondered if she’d questioned up until this moment if he’d ever _really_ been dead. No questioning after this, really. Wounds like this didn’t leave scars. Just corpses.

Tommy smiled at her, small and bland. “Got a matching one middle of my back, too. Entry wound’s smaller though. Missed my spine by less than an inch.”

She bit at her lips and screwed her brows up. “How are you alive?”

Cavalier, Tommy grinned brassily and tossed her a wink, tugging his shirt back down. “Perks of League membership.”

Felicity frowned. Chest rising with a deep inhalation, she dropped her attention to his right shin, where he knew there was a shiny, old patch of skin right across the bone a few inches above his ankle. “And that one?”

His smile collapsed down to a ghost, and absently, he rubbed over the smooth patch familiarly. “Dirtbike. Ollie and I were thirteen.”

He looked away from her, Oliver’s strident, panicked promises he’d be okay ringing in his ears—fading into the murmur of voices in the hallway where Robert Queen had arranged with the hospital staff to take Tommy home, even though he was neither parent nor guardian. Malcolm, after all, wasn’t coming.

Felicity stared at him, lips parting slowly. “You still call him Ollie.”

His eyes snapped to hers, a pang echoing through his chest. He opened his mouth, and found it empty of words, no pithy, disarming replies, no surprising honesty. Just nothing.

Their fraught stare was broken by a sudden, muffled crack overhead that had Felicity jolting in her seat and staring up at the ceiling. Seconds later, a rolling _boom_ sounded, trailing off into a threatening murmur.

Rain began to fall hard and steady enough to be heard, a persistent, beating hush, even in the interior rooms they occupied.

Felicity continued to stare wide-eyed upwards, cheeks pale and breathing quick. Her hands wrapped around her book, white knuckled.

“Felicity,” Tommy said softly, evenly. “It’s only a thunderstorm.”

Her head still tipped back, a dark, bitter chuckle cracked in her throat. “A thunderstorm. _Only_ a thunderstorm.” Slowly, she lowered her gaze back to his, jaw tight with anger, eyes blazing and wounded. “I haven’t heard a thunderstorm in three months. The whole time in that cell, the _whole time_ —”

Tommy tensed, dread leadening in his gut.

She shook her head just a little. “You put me in a hole in the ground.”

Swallowing, Tommy confessed with a dip of his chin. “You’re not there anymore.”

Felicity laughed again—quiet, light, shattered. Voice gone thick, she skated her gaze away from him and carefully unfolded from the armchair, book clutched like a shield against her stomach. “I’m going to bed.”

He watched her stiff, straight back as she went, scrubbing a hand over the nape of his neck in frustration. He sighed.

Three steps forward, two steps back.

—

Felicity jolted awake in total darkness, heart racing and breath coming fast as she sat up, blinking into the shadows in confusion. Disoriented, she groped at the nightstand for glasses that weren’t there, unable to discern what had woken her.

She sighed, pressing one hand to her chest, trying to calm her pulse, and adjusted the uncomfortable twist of her tee shirt. She must have been dream—

_Thump_

Felicity gasped, pressing back against the headboard and staring in the direction of the door and the muffled _thud_ beyond it. Adrenaline flooded, tingling heat sweeping through her veins, heartbeat throbbing in her throat and temples. Her hand shook as she reached to switch on the bedside lamp, blinking and squinting against the suddenly harsh light.

“Tommy?” It came out a whisper, tight and strained. Her mouth felt desert-dry, muscles coiled so tight with tension she feared she might _snap_.

Instantly, the tangle of sheets around her legs became unbearable, and she scrambled and clawed to get free, half-tumbling out of the bed before gathering her feet under her, pushing against the mattress to stand upright.

Another _thump_ immediately preceded a hoarse shout, and Felicity’s head whipped towards the door, flinching, eyes wide, throat closing in fear.

The shout repeated, bled into a ragged scream—

“ _No! No, no, noooo_!” The screaming was—horrible, panic, agony, begging. The broken, desperate crack of the voice raised every hair on Felicity’s body, spread chills and gooseflesh across her skin. Cold sweat seemed to freeze at her temples, the hollow of her throat as she whirled around and snatched her heavy book off the nightstand, lofting it in shaking hands, the only weapon in reach. “ _Please_!”

The screamer began to plead in Arabic, choked off in a sob.

Sudden silence.

“T-T-T…” Felicity forced herself a step forward, clenched her chattering teeth shut, staring so hard at the door she wasn’t even really _seeing_ it. She whimpered, tears gathering in her eyes, tried again, managed to squeak, “Tommy?”

The voice raised again in a _howl_ , blood and murder and such electric, palpable _rage_ it sent Felicity onto her toes with a yelp. The screamer raged, a garble of syllables, curses, threats, some she could almost understand, others that only spoke viscerally to every survival instinct she possessed to _run run run_.

Tears spilled down her face, dripped off her chin to splatter against her chest—and yet, she didn’t back up to the wall, didn’t flee to the corner and press herself down, down, make herself small, so small, don’t notice, don’t see, look away, didn’t drop to the floor and crawl on her belly to hide beneath the bed—

Felicity took another step forward.

She knew that voice. _She knew that voice_.

And there _was_ only one.

“Tommy?” This time her voice came out strong, a loud, frightened call.

The furious belows subsided into pitiful, broken moans, high-pitched and hopeless. Shattered, destroyed, a soul in jagged pieces and _why why why_

Felicity forced another hard, long step forward. Another. The door was scant feet away. Her grip on the book felt slippery, insubstantial.

Abruptly, the moans cut into screaming again, the fury and the agony so entwined, overlapping, it almost seemed to be two voices, the devil and his damned.

Unable to stand it any longer, Felicity strode to the door, taking one hand from the book to beat at the metal and wood, pounding, pounding, shouting, “Tommy! Tommy, please!”

He kept screaming, screaming, the sound almost _wet_ as if he’d shredded his throat, his voice a thing of blood and horror.

“ _Tommy_!” Felicity dropped the book, beat with both fists at the door, throwing her entire body into it. “Tommy, _please_!”

 _Quiet_.

The screams cut off so suddenly it took a moment for the ringing silence to hit Felicity’s brain, her fists landing with stinging force against the door one last time as she froze, eyes wide and unfocused, chest heaving. She waited, leaning hard into the door, her every fibre straining for sound, for any hint as to what was happening beyond this door, the entire world locked away from her grasp, and her imagination more cruel and terrible for the lack.

Existence narrowed down to the cheap white paint coating the door, the aching heat in the meat of her fists, and the impossibly loud rasp of her own breath.

Feeling as if her throat narrowed to a pinhole, her voice a tiny whistle through it, she called again, “Tommy?”

Down the hall, a door opened with a squeak of hinges. Footsteps padded heavy and slow against the carpet, her gut coiling tighter and tighter the nearer they drew.

Beginning to shake anew, Felicity forced herself upright and stumbled back from the door, fingers twisting iron-clad in her shirtfront. Her jaw ached, she clenched it so tightly shut.

The footsteps stopped outside.

The lock disarmed with a beep, and Felicity pulled more tightly in against herself, small, _small, small_.

The knob twisted with a rattle and the door swung open, neither fast nor slow. There stood Tommy, framed in darkness.

He was white as a ghost, chest heaving, drenched in sweat and naked to the waist, his thin navy pajama pants slung low on his narrow hips. Dark hair was matted against his chest, partly obscuring the mark of his death. His face was terrible.

Eyes wide and round, the blue like chips of cold stone, bloodless lips parted and shook, his black hair plastered against his forehead and temples. He looked completely dislocated from his body, shaken and confused, barely present in his own skin.

He looked _terrified_.

Toes shuffling a bare inch forward against the carpet, Felicity swallowed once, twice, licked her lips. “Tommy. Are you—what h—”

“Felicity.” His voice was destroyed, the usual light tenor full of razor blades and gravel. Slowly, slowly, he raised his gaze from some unfixed point near her stomach and focused on her face. “Everything’s okay.”

He might as well have struck her.

Recoiling, Felicity shook her head, uncomprehending. “ _What_ ? No, there—there was all that screaming, _you_ were _screaming_ —”

“It’s okay,” he repeated, a hollow echo that seemed to sound from someplace empty and vast inside him. His face stayed unchanged, like only the remnant impressions of emotion painted on a wooden mask. “I was—I was dreaming. Just dreaming.”

“Tommy,” she pleaded, stepping towards him. Careful, hesitant, she reached out a hand, fingers shaking.

He retreated a step. His eyes, shadowed and haunted, had lost focus once more. His hand grasped the doorknob, and he looked at her dully, as if he weren’t truly seeing her at all. “Go back to sleep.”

Tommy shut the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) I hope the first major selection told from Tommy's point of view was as enjoyable for the rest of you as it was for me. There will be more of that from now on, though this story is still first and foremost Felicity's. Thank you all for everything, and trust me, if you didn't click that "recommended listening" link at the top of the chapter, you'll want to hit it now. No song on the Long Way Down playlist has so quintessentially encapsulated a single chapter of the story so much as this one.


	13. Pressure, Pressure (Poison at the Core)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I'm a little later on this one than I'd hoped to be, but between a birthday and some apartment hunting drama, things got a little nuts. Thanks for bearing with me, everyone. Things are going to move a bit more rapidly after this chapter, so brace yourselves.
> 
> Warning: This chapter contains a description of a PTSD episode and may be difficult for some readers.

Felicity jolted awake to a lively rap against her door, the back of her head smacking the wall behind her.

Adrenaline spiking, heart racing, she blinked her contacts—uncomfortably dry—back into place and squinted through the low lamplight to focus on the doorknob, ears straining as she gingerly touched her crown. She was squished into the tiny space between her bed and bedside table, heavy book held loosely against her knees. Not for the first time, she wished for a window so she could know if it was morning, or still the dead of night.

“Felicity! You up?” The rap came again, Tommy’s voice disconcertingly bright and alert.

Fingers sliding out of her hair to press against the side of her face, doubt squirreled around in Felicity’s guts and she wondered if she had dreamed the night’s terrifying events. Her voice, in ironic contrast, came out graveled and rough. “Tommy?”

“It’s quarter to eight, Felicity, hop to it.” The familiar beep signaled her lock disarming, but true to pattern, Tommy didn’t open the door himself.

Uncurling stiffly to her feet, she set her book down on the nightstand—stretching her hands out of their hours-long grip—and tugged her clothes to rights. She stepped cautiously across the room, hand hovering in brief hesitation over the knob before tugging it open, one fist clenched warily against her stomach.

Tommy leaned against the wall across, already dressed for the day in a tight, light gray t-shirt and well-fitting black cargo pants. He sipped at a steaming mug of tea, raising his eyebrows at her over the rim. It wasn’t until, door no longer between them, he lowered the mug with a lick of his lips that she heard the lingering rasp in his voice. “Morning.”

Ice slid down Felicity’s spine, and she let go of the door to step into the threshold. “Tommy… you were... are you o—”

He cleared his throat and glanced at a watch he wasn’t wearing, straightening from the wall with a bounce. “I’ve got thirty minutes til I gotta run around for a few hours, so you probably wanna start in the bathroom. If it gets close, you can do breakfast in your room, right?” He hefted his mug with another quirk of his brows. “Want some tea? Kettle’s still hot.”

Felicity stared at him, mouth agape, as Tommy turned and headed down the hallway, stride comfortably loping. She stood rooted in shock and confusion until he turned the corner for the kitchen, and finally picked up her feet to hurry after him.

She couldn’t shake the dragging feeling that if he stayed out of her sight the screaming would start again.

Tommy looked over his shoulder at her when she stopped short by the fridge. He opened the cabinet facing him and lifted a deep blue mug, shaking it at as a question. Brows furrowed, Felicity shook her head, then changed her mind and nodded.

Tommy smiled.

It was seriously creeping her out.

He turned away from her, opening the cabinet that contained the tea. “Chamomile? Breakfast tea?”

Moving carefully, she stepped closer, fingers loosely curling around the fridge handle, just for something to hold onto. “Earl Grey.” She’d kill for a coffee. (Maybe literally.)

He nodded, humming. “Listen, I’m sorry about last night. Hope I didn’t scare you too bad.”

Felicity’s eyes widened; she wasn’t sure what was harder to believe, that he was addressing it, or doing it so cavalierly. “Tommy, you were _screaming_.”

He shrugged, and she caught his wince in profile. “Yeah, sorry you had to wake up to that.”

She barked a sharp laugh, eyebrows jumping high. “Are you kidding? I thought you were being _murdered_. I thought we were under attack. That would have w—”

“Woken the dead?” The smile he turned on her was its own nightmare, cold flesh pulled in hard angles over sharp teeth, the unfamiliar imitation of humor and reassurance, empty and _wrong_. It made her skin crawl to look at. He closed his lips over his teeth and turned away again. “Well, don’t worry. Shouldn’t happen again.”

“Tommy,” Felicity took a step forward, insistent. “You said you were _dreaming_. What the hell were you dreaming about? It sounded—” she shuddered violently; the memory of his screams, high and thin with relentless pain, scraped and stuttered down her vertebrae like the naked edge of a knife. “It sounded like you were being tortured.”

“Every League assassin does his time under the knife.” He stilled and the words came out rapidly, matter of fact—automatic, like she’d pressed a button or pulled a cord. Felicity’s lips parted as he stood there a frozen beat, tea bags gently swinging above the lip of the mug, face a void and eyes unseeing. He blinked, and his hands started lowering the tea bags into her mug again. “Just part of training. It’s fine.”

Horror ripped through her like a frigid wind. “That’s not… that’s not _fine_.” He ignored her, and she stepped closer again, near enough she could reach out and take his elbow, if she wanted. “It’s not _fine_. And that didn’t sound like—like training.”

Tommy’s lips compressed, and she could see the shadows of exhaustion under his eyes from this close. He sighed, impatient. “What do you want me to say?”

She braced one hand against the counter edge. “I don’t know, the truth, maybe! What _happened_ last night? What did you dream about that made you scream and beg and—and _howl_ like some kind of mons—”

He slammed the base of her mug against the counter, cutting her off. She jerked back with a startled gasp and he turned blazing, hollowed eyes on her. “What do you _think_ , Felicity? I died! I was dead!” He laughed, a brittle, bitter chuckle, upper lip twitching. “I sounded like a monster to you?”

She backed up, though he didn’t move towards her, didn’t even lean into her space. He just bared his teeth.

“Did you think coming back from the dead would be _easy_? Wouldn’t have a cost?” He shook his head at her, but the pull of his scowl was almost… confused.

Grip white-knuckled on the counter, Felicity stared at him and tried to get her breathing, her racing heart under control as Tommy turned back to spoon sugar into the bottom of her mug, his face slowly closing down into cold, blank planes. “I only have about twenty minutes before I have to get out of here. I can make you some oatmeal to have in your room, but if you want a shower, you better go.”

His jaw worked while she stared at his profile, stunned by his vicious defensiveness, yet kicking herself for it. Tommy had, since al-Dhi’b’s attack, since bringing her into his _home_ , taken great pains to not himself appear threatening to her. Felicity had noticed. She had been disconcerted, she hadn’t _trusted_ it… but perhaps she’d gotten too used to it. Too used to his gentle insistence that she make choices for herself where he could allow them, too used to his patience with her wariness, too used to his care not to touch her uninvited or loom or startle her.

She’d forgotten, maybe, the ways that he had deliberately frightened her in her cell. His rough hands and the bruises _they_ had left when he met her that first night here. The insistent, unwelcome _tap tap tap_ of his fingertips on her knee during her interrogation. She wouldn’t forget again.

But this was more than that. More than a blunt reminder that she was caged up with a dangerous creature. In all those moments past, Tommy had been intimidating, terribly unknown, even frightening. But he had been… sure. Confidently in possession of himself and rooted in conviction. That steel along his spine had been ripped brutally out, almost overnight, and it left him… hunched, wavering, wounded and snarling and confused and backed into a corner.

But she searched the unforgiving lines of his posture, the rigid clench of his jaw and the tightness of his fingers around the handle of the mug, and she didn’t know what it meant. Didn’t know if the greater threat was outside the door—or in here with her. Didn’t know if this meant Tommy was a risk too terrible to take… or an opportunity she would have to be brave and smart and careful enough to exploit.

Shaking, eyes lingering only a moment on Tommy, who continued to stonily ignore her, Felicity retreated.

—

She slept.

Once she emerged from a fast shower, Tommy locked Felicity in her room again with a bowl of cinnamon oatmeal and her tea, and left. They spoke maybe three words to each other. He never met her eyes.

After his footsteps faded down the hall and she stopped straining her ears for the sound of the front door, Felicity picked at her breakfast, eventually setting it aside on the nightstand, half uneaten. When Tommy was out, time tended to drag in encompassing silence, mocking her with the hush of her own breathing, the endlessly blank walls in their warm cream color.

She missed TV. She missed movies and music and the news and the feel of cool plastic keys under her fingers, and the power they gave her.

She missed… everything.

Exhaustion settling heavy on her frame, Felicity stretched out on the bed, twitching the blanket over her legs, and pulled her book again onto the mattress. This time, she cracked the cover and found her place in the story, but focus eluded her. It wasn’t long until her eyes slipped shut, and sleep took her away.

Mercy sent her no dreams.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the soft beep of her lock disarming woke her again. Leveraging onto one elbow, Felicity craned her head towards the door, waiting, but Tommy said nothing, didn’t knock, didn’t touch the knob. It was a long moment before Felicity realized he wasn’t waiting on the other side this time.

Felicity took a few minutes to get herself sorted, finger-combing her hair and loosely looping the drawstring around her wrist in case she wanted to tie it back. She changed her clothes, pulling on thick black leggings and socks, and layering a tanktop underneath a sweatshirt.

Her fingers hesitated on one in her size, and then very deliberately, she chose and pulled on the one Tommy had given her the first day in his rooms.

Dressed, Felicity carried her book out of the room, hesitating in the hall—indeed empty of Tommy and his patience—until she heard the muffled sound of movement, breathing, and grunted counting beckoning her to the living area.

She came out of the mouth of the hallway and stopped, eyes running over the furniture, all pushed widely clear of the center space. Tommy was there on toes and two fingers, still in his colorless fatigues, feet bare. Sweat dampened his shirt and hair.

He didn’t look up as she moved to the armchair and settled in it cross-legged. She lay the book in her lap, rested her arms on top of it, and leaned forward to stare blatantly as he lowered onto his stomach, rolled tightly, and launched into crunches. Twice, his eyes flickered up to meet hers but each time slid quickly away, focusing almost angrily on the middle distance, numbers punching out of his mouth on harsh puffs of air.

Felicity didn’t flinch, or look away. She studied him, really _studied_ him. The corded, thick muscles of his shoulders and arms, the veins tracing from the backs of his hands up his forearms, the sweat slicking his temples and pressing down the dark hair on his chest, darkening the gray of his shirt from the vee of the collar to his stomach. His hair was freshly trimmed, cropped close at the sides and back and a little longer on top, the fringe falling across his forehead.

There was a smear of blood behind the hinge of his jaw, the red stain an ominous story she couldn’t yet read.

Drawing a deep breath, Felicity tugged up the long sleeves of Tommy’s sweatshirt, bunching them at her elbows. The motion drew Tommy’s gaze, and when his eyes flickered up to hers, she asked, “How long were you gone? I fell asleep.”

Tommy’s brows twitched, the rhythm of his movement faltering. Blowing out a long breath, he slowed out of his crunches, stretching one leg out in front of him and propping an arm on his left knee. He stretched out a hand to grasp a perspiring water bottle, twisting the cap off while he tilted his head at her curiously. “Little over three hours. It’s about noon.”

She nodded, absently rubbing her palms up and down the skin of her inner arms. “Almost time for lunch, then.”

Tommy shrugged, eyes narrowing a little, and took a sip of his water. Felicity watched with detachment as his throat moved, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. Watched him lick his lips. He shifted his weight.

“You have a little,” Felicity turned her head a bit, smudged at her neck with a thumb while staring pointedly at the red on Tommy’s skin.

He startled, quickly covering the spot on his neck with one hand. He pulled it away and looked at the blood on his palm, swearing. Mouth curving in a scowl, he lifted the collar of his shirt and swiped harshly at his skin, glancing furtively at Felicity.

She licked her lips, lowering her feet to the floor and resting her palms flat against her knees. “Tommy, what you said this morning.”

He tensed, warned through clenched teeth, “Felicity…”

“‘Every League assassin does his time under the knife,’” she quoted, tipping her head to the side. Tommy glared at her, coiled tight like he was braced for a blow.

She wasn’t sure if that was fascinating, or sickening.

“What’s happening to al-Dhi’b?”

Tommy’s shoulders slowly eased, his grip on the bottle loosening enough that the plastic crinkled back into shape. He dragged his bottom lip through his teeth, and sighed. “The blood was his.”

Something vicious sang through Felicity’s chest. She held Tommy’s gaze calmly. “Is he dead?”

Tommy lifted his chin, breathing deeply. “Not yet.”

“Soon?”

“No.”

“Why?” It came out a demand, insistent, a growl propelling it from the back of her throat. Realizing she’d begun to lean forward, Felicity stiffly straightened again.

Tommy searched her face for a moment, then nodded, seemingly to himself. “He won’t die here. He _will_ die, but not here.”

Felicity exhaled, grinding her teeth against a bloodthirsty impatience. Fingers twitching against her knees, she asked, “Are you torturing him? Is he under _your_ knife?”

Tommy’s mouth opened, then shut with a click, the muscle in his jaw working while he ducked his chin, looking up at her from under his brows. His voice was a soft hush when he answered, neither confession nor boast; just naked, unadorned truth. “Yes.”

Something… settled in Felicity then, a cold, satisfied peace in the pit of her stomach. She let it show in her eyes, lips parting as she wet them. Just as softly, just as starkly, she answered, “Good.”

She set her book aside and stood, taking an easy step forward while Tommy craned his head back to look at her. She looked back unflinching and walked closer, the side of her calf brushing Tommy’s pants leg as she stepped carefully nearer, directly in his space. Tommy froze, and inhaled sharply enough she could hear it.

Stopping just short of the toes of his drawn up leg, Felicity looked down at Tommy and slowly bent at the waist. He swallowed hard, his lashes fluttering in the suggestion of a flinch as she reached out a hand. Gingerly, she touched the edge of his jaw and turned his face just slightly, and swiped her fingertips just under his ear.

She stood straight, and they came away red.

Tommy watched her with wide eyes as she curled her fingers into her palm,  turning her body towards the kitchen. “I’m hungry. I think I’ll make some lunch, do you want any?”

He blinked rapidly and nodded as if it were a foreign mechanism.

Felicity shaped her mouth into the hint of a smile. “Don’t get up. I know where things are.”

She turned and walked away with trembling hands.

—

Days slipped by like sand through an hourglass.

Tommy didn’t tear open the midnight with screaming again, but the effects lingered between them, the slow, relaxing tension of a snapped rubber band. Felicity tread a careful balance during the day, passing as much time as possible in the shared spaces so that Tommy was obligated to be around her. She left him alone, mostly, and kept conversation small or simple. She pretended not to notice when he would freeze up, gaze filming over with horrors, sudden flinches flashing across his face.

Occasionally, he got restless and picked at her with shrewd eyes and leading questions, but they never did more than wade into risky shallows. Felicity did her best to keep them out of dangerous riptides if she saw no advantage in it.

The last thing she needed was for Tommy to start seeing her—and treating her—as opposition.

Slowly, he seemed to relax again, and they took meals together with relative ease; Felicity braced herself more and more to take an active role, preparing food alongside him, offering to help with the dishes. She pushed herself to move in more from the fringes of the rooms they shared, to take control of increasing territory and treat it like it belonged to her. Tommy held the advantage in too much; these were his rooms, they ate his food, she kept his hours, and he held the literal and metaphorical key to everything.

The more she forced his perception of her to slowly adjust to seeing her as an equal, the better her chances.

But Tommy wasn’t stupid; far from it. If Felicity pushed too hard, too fast, she risked shattering their fragile coexistence, which would decrease her chances of eventual escape—much less _survival_ —dismally. Whatever stresses were pressing down on Tommy, he was visibly fracturing under the strain. Felicity had to take care not to be the pressure that broke him. She only needed him to bend.

The trouble was, she didn’t know quite how to proceed. To her surprise, Tommy ended up making the first move.

He’d started working out in the living area almost every day. She wasn’t sure if it was obsession, distraction, or exorcism. Perhaps a little of all three. Whatever the reason, she was getting used to looking up from her books to see him drenched in sweat, focused on an invisible target as he feinted at ghosts or worked his body faster and harder in pushups or crunches.

It was sometimes a little jarring. Tommy Merlyn, before his death, had been fit in a well-groomed, well-maintained way. It was about health and vanity. He’d been lean, trim from a mostly-dedicated gym regimen; not from use, or labor. This Tommy was a whipcord, taut and hard-planed, broader in the chest and shoulders and narrower in the waist. His arms and legs had never _needed_ to be this powerful before.

Knowing what Malcolm had been, Felicity had to wonder if he’d realized his son had the potential to be… this.

Somehow, she doubted it.

“Enjoying the show?”

Felicity blinked her attention back into the present, eyes focusing on Tommy who had slowed to a cooldown routine. He wasn’t looking at her, moving sure and measured through a controlled, economic kata; he didn’t bother to hide the amused curl of his mouth though.

Lifting her chin, Felicity refused to be embarrassed at being called out for staring. She’d unabashedly spectated through more of Oliver’s workouts than she could recall to count. He’d have to try a lot harder than that.

Shrugging her mouth sarcastically, she answered dryly, “Eh, I watch it when it’s on.”

He broke into a smile helplessly, huffing a laugh. Easing out of his last stance, he drawled, “Happy to entertain.”

He bent to retrieve a short towel from the coffee table, and Felicity lifted her brows archly while he swiped at his neck. “It’s not like there’s much else to do.”

Eyeing her speculatively, Tommy hung the towel behind his neck and indicated the cleared living area with a dramatic sweep of his arm. “The floor’s yours if you wanna take a crack at it.”

Startled, Felicity blinked at him, heart rate picking up nervously.

He waggled his eyebrows, chin tipping back while he gripped the ends of the towel. “Come on, I caught you doing yoga a few times. That can’t be all you got.”

Huffing, Felicity pressed her lips together. “Yoga was all there was really room for in my cell.”

Tommy sailed smoothly past the pointed reminder. “Well you’ve got the space, now. And I know Sara and Diggle taught you more than downward dog, so why not shake off the rust?”

A fire lit in Felicity’s belly and she clenched her teeth, wrenching her jaw a little to the side and cutting her eyes away from Tommy’s. She didn’t remember telling him _who_ had taught her what self-defense she knew; only that it wasn’t Oliver. It must have been one of the many unknowns she’d let slip during her interrogation.

Felicity wanted to slam her book shut, shove to her feet, and storm from the room. She wanted to throw the book at his head, and hurl accusations and guilt and loathing. She wanted to _scream_.

But none of that would accomplish anything.

Sucking in a centering breath, she lifted her head again and met Tommy’s waiting gaze. “Alright.” He blinked, eyebrows arching in surprise. “But I have a better idea.”

He watched her quizzically as she shut her book—softly, quietly—and set it aside to rise to her feet. Smoothing her palms nervously down the thighs of her leggings, she licked her lips and stepped forward. “Spar with me.”

Tommy’s mouth fell open, uncertainty in his eyes. “I—what? I’m not… sure that’s a good idea.”

She had to play this just right. Wrapping her arms loosely around her waist, she moved a little closer across the floor, holding his gaze. “But you were right that I’m probably rusty. And if… if anything like al-Dhi’b happens again—”

“It _won’t_ ,” Tommy interrupted fiercely, brows lowered and eyes bright as the blue center of a flame. He had to look down at her as she stepped close, almost in his personal space. His grip on the ends of the towel turned white-knuckled. “Over my dead body, Felicity. I swear it.”

She swallowed hard, breathing carefully through a low panic that constricted her lungs. “And if _that_ happens, Tommy. If that happens, I need to be not rusty.”

She stared up at him resolutely as he searched her face, the muscles of his jaw jumping under his skin. With a sigh, he shut his eyes. Opening them again, he nodded. “Alright. Stretch first. Then we’ll see what you’ve got.”

Heart a hammer, Felicity gave him a tight smile as he turned away from her, moving to the coffee table shoved against the wall. He dropped his towel there and picked up his bottle of water, and while he twisted the cap free, butterflies swooping sickly in her stomach, she spun on her heel. Facing away from him, she reached down and took hold of the hem of her sweatshirt. Screwing her eyes shut tight, she pulled it up and over her head, hands shaking as she balled it up and tossed it at her armchair.

Tugging needlessly at the bottom of her tanktop, she turned around to face Tommy again. He was turned to one side, very pointedly studying the wall.

He stood and stared at the wall, sipping his water while Felicity self-consciously loosened up. Straightening, she rolled back her shoulders, shook out her hands, and cleared her throat. “Ready.”

Tommy screwed the cap back onto his water, set it down, and turned to face her. Tilting his head, he examined her critically from head to foot, folding his arms across his chest and bracing his feet shoulder width apart. “Hmm. How many crunches can you do?”

Brow furrowing, Felicity frowned. “Um. Probably about fifty?”

Tommy pursed his lips, humming dissatisfaction in his throat. “We’ll work on that another time.” Felicity’s eyebrows arched, but he ignored her, shifting on his feet and raising his hands about chest high. “Okay. Come over here and hit me.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she muttered. He raised one brow at her but she shook her head, taking in a deep breath and flexing her hands as she walked over to him.

Stopping right in front of him, Felicity set her feet and settled into the stance Sara had taught her, feet rooted, solidifying her center of gravity in her hips, knees bent. Breathing deep, she raised her fists.

“That’s right,” Tommy encouraged softly, smiling crooked. “Put up your dukes. Hit me.”

Focusing intently on the meat of his open, waiting palm, she did.

“That all you got? Harder.”

She gritted her teeth, bounced on her feet, and struck again.

“Again.”

Right cross.

“Come on, Felicity, _hit me_.”

Left hook.

“Harder.”

She hit _harder_.

“Getting there. Come on.” He bent his knees, bounced a little, looked her dead in the eye. “Hit _him_.”

Felicity’s eyes widened and her nostrils flared. Heat flashed across skin stretched too tight, and her pulse throbbed in her temples, her throat. Swiveling her hips into the force, she struck Tommy’s hand again, and he grunted, the impact reverberating up his arm. He opened his mouth, but she struck again, knuckles slamming meatily into his open palm. Again. Again.

 _Again_.

A furious roar broke free from her throat as she drove the blow home with all her might, all her rage, and forced Tommy back a step.

“Good,” he pronounced, closing his fingers around her fist. Her eyes flew to his, her breathing coming fast, and Tommy held onto her hand and straightened slowly. He squeezed lightly. “Very good. Remember that.”

Swallowing hard, she pulled her fist free and stepped back, smoothing a shaking hand back over her forehead, pushing fallen hair out of her face. Wrestling her fury back into a manageable box, Felicity turned away and unlooped the drawstring from her wrist. In jerky motions, she gathered back her hair and pulled it tight into a ruthless bun, securing it as best she could.

Behind her, Tommy asked lowly, “You good?”

No. No she was not.

Propping her hands on her hips, she evened out her breathing and nodded.

She turned around again and he stood where she’d left him, hands at his sides, watching her carefully. “Enough for today?”

She wanted to say yes. She wanted to go hide in her room and pull the blankets over her head and maybe have a cry. But she also wanted to push herself. Wanted to be _stronger_. In so many ways.

Bouncing on her bare feet, Felicity flexed her hands, drawing quick breaths. “No.”

Tommy looked dubious, biting the inside of his cheek. “I think maybe it’s enough for today, Felici—”

She threw a punch at him.

“Felicity!” He ducked the wide swing easily, one hand flashing up to smack her wrist aside.

She crowded forward and punched again, aiming for his solar plexus, glancing off the forearm he threw up to block instead. He glared at her and growled as she danced quickly out of his reach, fists up and ready.

“Exactly what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Tommy demanded, brows lowered irritably.

“Being proactive,” Felicity answered, feinting a step towards him just to watch him tense.

Tommy’s eyebrows raised in warning, his hands coming up defensively as his chin jutted forward. “I’m telling you I don’t think this is a good idea.” Felicity lifted her head sharply and stepped challengingly closer, making Tommy press his lips and huff impatiently through his nose. “But since you clearly don’t care what I think, fine.”

Felicity narrowed her eyes, looking for the catch.

Tommy offered her a tight, displeased smile and turned his palms to face him, crooking his fingers, beckoning. “You get what you ask for.”

Felicity wasted no time, lunging forward and spinning a low kick at his knee. He turned deftly away, brought closer. Felicity threw a punch for his jaw, and when he deflected, smacked the heel of her other palm hard into his chest. He grunted and fell a step back, but flashed out one hand to catch her wrist.

He jerked hard and she stumbled forward, heart pounding, and aimed the knife-edge of her free hand at this throat. Tommy caught it and spun her, crashing her back into his torso and trapping her arms across her body.

Instant panic stampeded through Felicity’s veins, tightening her lungs and seeming to pinch the corners of her vision. She struggled in his tight hold, growling, and aimed a stomp for his instep. She missed.

“I told you,” Tommy puffed against her neck, hissing as she scored her heel down his shin; ineffective barefooted, but not comfortable. “That this was a bad idea. You. Are not. Ready.”

He lightly squeezed her wrists to drive home the point, and fury rose under the panic rushing through her.

“Let. Me. Go!” A short, harsh cry bursting from her lips, she twisted in his grasp and angled one sharp elbow hard into Tommy’s ribs. He grunted, his grip slackening on her left wrist enough she pulled it free.

Craning her neck to glare up at him—or at his jaw, this close—Felicity pushed her hand against Tommy’s stomach, shoving ineffectually. He didn’t budge, and in her frustration she dug her fingernails against the tight cotton of his white tanktop, feeling the skin of his abdomen press under the bite.

For one second, Tommy froze, still as death.

In the next, he released Felicity so abruptly that she spun, legs tangling, and she fell jarringly to hands and knees, the carpet abrading her palms. She could only blink in confusion before a crash behind her brought her, wincing, back to her feet, stinging palms tucked against her stomach.

“Tommy?” His name came out in bewilderment, and she stared where he was scrambling on his knees towards the wall on the other side of the overturned coffee table. His water bottle rolled aimlessly towards the couch.

Felicity stepped forward without conscious thought, all her attention absorbed by the way Tommy pressed backward against the wall as if he might force his way through it; by his unfocused eyes and starkly terrified expression.

A bottomless pit opened in Felicity’s gut, cold flashing across her skin from head to toe. Bloodlessly pale, he looked as much a ghost as if the League had never raised him.

Moving slow and careful, Felicity stepped over to the water bottle and picked it up, Tommy’s eyes sightlessly tracking her, low whines and whispered pleas falling from his shaking lips.

“Tommy,” she called softly, tremulously, one hand held up non threateningly as she moved slowly to the upended table.

He tensed impossibly tighter when she reached it, his breathing ragged and loud as he muttered quiet, “No, no, no, stop, no more, no, no…”

Swallowing hard, Felicity kept her movements slow and large as she unscrewed the cap from the water bottle, dropping it carelessly. One more time, she spoke quietly but firmly, “Tommy.”

He looked at her, but he didn’t _see_ her, just as he had looked through her that midnight on the other side of her threshold.

Felicity threw the water on him in a wide arc, splashing him across the face and down his front, splattering the carpet and the wall behind him.

Tommy sputtered, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut, one hand coming up to shield his face from further drenching. “Wha—What?”

Holding herself taut as a bowstring, Felicity clutched the water bottle hard enough the plastic crinkled and waited while Tommy wiped the water from his eyes and mouth. Voice tight and high, she demanded, “Are you here again?”

A war of emotions flickered tellingly across Tommy’s face—fear, realization, guilt, rage, weariness—before he closed his expression to sharp lines of confused annoyance, but it was a thin, brittle veneer. His tone was waspish, but strained. “Felicity, what the fuck? This isn’t a wet t-shirt contest.”

“Tommy,” Felicity intoned with deliberate care, a warning growling under the syllables, “what just _happened_?”

He stared up at her, eyes wide, hair dripping down his forehead, and opened his mouth, but no handily prepared lies or excuses fell out. He shut his teeth with a click and turned his face away, the set of his jaw almost sullen as he growled, “Let it go, Felicity.”

“Let it—” Her eyes widened, heat crawling up her chest and throat to burn in her cheeks. “No, I will not _let it go_ , Tommy! What the _fuck_ just happened!”

Glaring at her, he braced his hands against the wall and leveraged slowly to his feet, stonily refusing to answer her.

Fine. If he wouldn’t just tell her, she would guess, hurl her questions at him like darts and daggers and see what stuck.

She straightened her spine like a rod, shoulders throwing back. “Was that some kind of—of PTSD? Some sort of flashback to being dead?” She sneered, “Or to your _torture training_?”

Tommy’s jaw flexed as he stepped away from the wall, motions jerky as he looked down at his shirt and pulled the cotton away from his skin, nose wrinkling.

Felicity persisted, both hands wrapped tight around the nearly-empty water bottle now. “What happened when they brought you back, Tommy? _How_ did they bring you back? You said there was a cost, but was it _worth_ it? Do you even know what price you paid!”

Her voice got higher and louder and _angrier_ the longer he refused to answer, refused to so much as look at her. He moved forward, his stride a rolling, predatory prowl that had her backing up without even thinking of it. Still, he didn’t look at her, only bent to set the coffee table back on its feet.

Frustration climbed up her throat like a scream, and before she knew she would do it she was hurling the water bottle at him, its remaining contents splashing as it turned end over end, missing him only because he turned aside just in time. It smacked into the wall behind him with a wet, hollow noise, the carpet muffling its landing. Tommy stared at her like she’d lost her mind, skin flushing red and the veins in his neck standing out.

At least he was _looking_ at her. Taking a long, provoking step forward, her voice filled every corner of the room with her fear and anger. “What did they _do_ to you, Tommy!”

His answer was a roar. “I don’t _know_!”

Felicity rocked back on her heels; on the other side of the table, wild-eyed and panting, Tommy looked stunned by his own confession. His gaze drifted away from her, one visibly shaking hand rising to shove the wet hair off his forehead. Slowly, he turned away from her, moving back to the wall and bracing his hands against it, head bowing.

Felicity gaped at his back, lips parting.

How could he not know? How was that possible? How could he _stand_ to not know?

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she breathed. Then, louder, “How do you _not know_ , Tommy?”

His shoulders bunched tighter, but he gave her no answer; didn’t even lift his head.

Heart pounding, Felicity physically forced the issue, moving around the coffee table to stand beside it. Too close to ignore. Not close enough to reach. She threw her words at him like stones, and he flinched at each strike. “You told me once that you knew _exactly_ what you were. What you were doing, and why, and who you were doing it for. You were so _sure_. You have been telling me over and over that these are _your_ choices, that you are the monster of your _own_ making. How. Do you. Not. _Know_!”

His voice was a hush, a muffled echo from miles down deep in him. “I thought I knew.”

She wrapped her arms over her stomach tightly, gripping her elbows. Cold fury ran through her like an electric current, an anger she couldn’t explain, didn’t understand. She didn’t need to; just needed to use it. “Do you know or don’t you?” she demanded. “Which is it, Tommy!”

“I don’t know,” the words pulled out of his throat like they were dragged bare over gravel, rough, raw. Bleeding. “I don’t. Know.” His hands turned to fists and pounded at the wall; Felicity jumped. “I don’t know!”

Using her anger to steel her nerves and ice her spine, Felicity stepped carefully forward until she stood beside Tommy. Raising one hand—steady—she set her fingers in the curve of his bicep, and with just a little pressure, he lowered his arms and lifted his head to face her.

“Maybe it’s time to figure it out.”

—

They made tea.

Though Tommy had calmed—seemed again to possess himself in the here and now—he was cagey, brooding, reluctant to speak.

If he agreed that it was time to learn exactly what bargain for his soul he’d made when the League raised him from the dead, he seemed less certain that it was time to discuss it with her.

Felicity couldn’t be sure if it was the clinging film of loyalty and fervid belief, or fear, or guilt, or just… stalling. Buying time.

For all that she had bludgeoned him into the confrontation before, despite her meticulous intentions, she found now that she didn’t know to proceed. She was hesitant to push further, yet _needed_ to. It was a hell of a tightrope to walk.

Side by side, they stood in the kitchen in tense quiet, the kettle steaming on the stove as they pulled down mugs and prepared sugar and tea bags. Tommy poured his water and then offered the kettle to her.

Mugs filled and doctored, they eschewed the dining table for the living area, Tommy sitting in the corner of the couch nearest the armchair while Felicity resumed her usual seat.

Tommy stared grimly into his mug, turning it back and forth in his hands. Felicity watched him, raising her mug to her lips to blow on the steam; it was still too hot to drink. She was distractedly watching his hands, trying to find the words to begin, when Tommy broke the silence himself.

“It was… magic. Or science, I guess. I’m not actually sure there’s a real difference between the two.” He stared straight ahead, his mouth pressed thin, the tea all but forgotten between his palms.

“‘Magic’s just science we don’t understand yet,’” Felicity quoted reflexively, gaze tracing his profile.

“What?” Tommy turned to meet her eyes, blinking.

“Um,” she shook her head. “Arthur C. Clarke. Science fiction writer. It’s something he said in a book.”

Tommy raised his eyebrows briefly. “Right. Well I definitely don’t understand it. I just know it worked. I was… I was really, definitely dead. I remember dying.” He looked away with a softly bitter scoff. “It sucked.” Resting his mug against one knee, he took one hand away from it and rubbed at the spot below his sternum she knew bore that scar. “Sh—they called it a Lazarus Pit.”

Felicity’s brows hiked. “How thematically named.”

He snorted. “It’s the League of Assassins and everybody has names like the Demon’s Head or the Canary; I’m not really sure what you expected.”

She shrugged with her mouth and canted her head. He had a fair point.

Leaning back into the couch, Tommy sighed, palm resting over his chest like there was still a hole to seal. “Mostly I remember being submerged. It… wasn’t water. Thicker. It burned—everything. My eyes, my skin, in my mouth, my lungs… It felt like I was under a long time. And when I came up—”

He cut off abruptly, cursing softly as hot tea spilled over his hand. Setting the mug on the floor beside the couch, he wiped his hand on his sweatpants, jaw clenched tight. He looked up at her as he straightened, the flinty look in his eyes unnerving. “I don’t really remember much after I came up.”

Felicity licked her lips, uneasily certain that wasn’t quite the truth.

Sniffing loudly, Tommy leaned back into the couch cushions, turning his splashed hand this way and that, clinically eyeing the reddened skin. “I was given a choice. I made it. There was a lot of… a lot of training.” His eyes squeezed closed, jaw wrenching to the side with a harsh sigh. “But a lot of it’s… slippery. I _know_ it happened, I know it did. But if I try to concentrate on it, it just… it’s like trying to nail jello to a wall.”

Felicity’s eyebrows arched at the metaphor, but she didn’t interrupt.

“It’s only after the torture resistance training that everything feels real, feels—solid again.” He swallowed, gulped really, and stared straight ahead. “T—they said that happens, sometimes. That some of the torture resistance was chemical. Can mess with the memories.” He looked down at his hands again, fingers spreading wide, and leaned forward, elbows on knees, the muscles in his jaw working. “That has to be it. That’s all it is. Just—stuff from then suddenly resurfacing. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

He was reaching, rationalizing. Desperate. Hands tightening around her mug, she shifted in her seat, drawing his gaze. “Tommy…”

Whatever he saw in her face, heard in her tone, he didn’t like. He looked away, nostrils flaring, fists clenching. “No.”

Felicity pursed her lips and leaned towards him, chin thrust forward. “Are you sure you remember what you think you remember?” He snatched up his mug from the floor and took an angry gulp of tea, avoiding her gaze. “What if you don’t know what you thought you did?”

Glaring balefully—fear slithering behind his irises—at her, Tommy spoke through gritted teeth. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Stubbornly, she persisted. “Tommy, what if you didn’t _choose_ what you thought you chose?” She took a hand from her mug, hesitated, reached out and touched her fingertips to his knee. He was rigid under her touch. “What if there was no choice to m—”

“ _Enough_ ,” he snapped, his leg jerking away from her fingers. He stood, blinked like there hadn’t been a plan to the motion, and strode forcefully past her towards the kitchen, setting his mug on the table with a clunk and disappearing from view just long enough to return with a damp rag, dabbing at the sticky tea residue on his burned hand. “I’ve had—nightmares, memories, whatever, and sure, maybe I’m doubting the way I remembered things.” He glared at her, and she wondered if he knew how defensive his posture was, shoulders bunched up and high, hands held close in front of his stomach, shielding. “But that doesn’t mean we’re in some vast conspiracy web.”

Felicity scoffed, rose half out of the chair and turned towards him, knee braced on the seat cushion. “You kidnapped me on order of the League of Assassins to make things harder on your vigilante best friend, who watched you die. Is it conspiracy theories in general you’re calling ridiculous, or just the ones that you’re not pulling the strings of? Maybe _you_ just don’t like the idea you’re as caught in the web as me.” She smiled at him, bitter and mean. “I don’t think you’re the spider here, Tommy.”

He glowered at her, lips twitching over his teeth, breathing fast. Breaking away from her stare like he couldn’t stand it, he turned and hurled the rag in his hand back into the kitchen, the wet, dull smack of it landing in the sink somehow anticlimactic.

Feeling like fire raced under her skin and that if she stayed in this conversation any longer, she might burst into flame—and ignite Tommy into explosion—Felicity stood with a forced, careful calm, securing her hands around her tea mug. Tommy didn’t back away from her as she stepped up from the sunken living area and crossed the short distance to him, but he drew tighter and taller as she stepped into his space, expression hunted as he glared down at her.

She stood uncomfortably close, head tipped back to look up at him, throat exposed in defiance. He all but vibrated, so close to snapping she could _feel_ it in the inches between them. She huffed a soft, humorless laugh, deliberately raking her eyes up and down his body. “Welcome to the parlor.”

Felicity stepped easily back, turned on her heel, and walked down the hall to her room, leaving Tommy shaken and frustrated behind her.

—

Over the next two days, the tension in the apartment didn’t so much settle as submerge. Another confrontation lurked, waiting, just below the surface, but Tommy was determined to pretend at routine.

Felicity let him. For now.

The simple fact of the matter was that she didn’t know what next move to make, and so biding her time was all she _could_ do. Fortunately—or unfortunately—sitting on her hands didn’t last long enough to do something rash out of impatience.

It wasn’t that Felicity had forgotten that Dr. Malik had demanded a followup appointment; with everything going on with Tommy, she had been… distracted. Perhaps it had been better that way, as the mere thought of Malik’s brisk, latex-wrapped hands and cold, cutting gaze left Felicity chilled and nauseous. Anticipation would have been worse than the shock of dread and displeasure Tommy’s sudden announcement at the breakfast table had been.

If the walk through the halls was no worse than the last time, the exam itself was no better. The only small mercy was brevity, and no need for a repeat of the hands-on injury check that had so made Felicity’s skin crawl previously. However, she felt little spared when the doctor interrogated her—Tommy again standing guardian at her back—about the efficacy of her birth control. It was a short, ugly exchange, but Malik seemed satisfied in the end. Finishing as waspishly irritable as she had begun, Malik released them with a further prescription of dietary supplements and a short barrage of pointed commentary and instructions.

Moving back through the hallways, all Felicity wanted was a scorching hot shower. Malik had a way of looking at her that made her feel like a—a specimen, a preserved butterfly pinned to a board. Like her body was not her own.

She shuddered, and beside her—his hand resting lightly in the small of her back—Tommy glanced at her, eyebrows twitching in concern.

“You okay?” He asked softly, eyes scanning the deserted corridor ahead of them mechanically.

Catching her lower lip between her teeth, Felicity released it with a sigh and nodded. “I hate that woman. She looks at me like I’m a… a thing. Something to take apart, and not necessarily put back together.”

She glanced up at him and found his jaw clenched grimly, heard him exhale quietly. “Unfortunately, Dr. Malik is an inescapable unpleasantness.”

Lips pressing together, Felicity stared at his profile, chafing her hand over the gauze taped to the inside of her left elbow beneath her sweatshirt sleeve. “She looks at you like that, too, you know.”

Tommy’s head turned sharply, brows pulling together as he looked at her with wide, blue eyes. But as they searched her face, she saw they didn’t hold shock—but recognition. Felicity held his stare resolutely, mouth and chin firm.

The heel of his hand pressing against her spine prepared her for the left turn around the bend in the hall, but her focus didn’t stray from his face as he swallowed thickly, opened his mouth. “I—”

They rounded the corner, and Tommy’s gaze swung automatically forward again, mouth open and empty of words—and then the expression fell off his face like a mask too loosely fixed, his hand snatched from the small of her back to circle tightly around her upper right arm, teeth clicking shut. He stopped abruptly, pulling on her elbow so she stumbled backward—a half step behind him.

“What—” Felicity’s voice, equal parts confused and annoyed, dried up in her throat as she looked ahead and saw what had stopped Tommy so completely in his tracks.

Not five feet away in the middle of the hall stood a woman.

She didn’t exactly loom. Couldn’t, as she wasn’t much taller than Felicity, maybe five foot seven. Yet she seemed to take up the entire hallway, absorbing every inch of space, stealing every gasp of breathable air around her. Her presence radiated lethality.

It wasn’t that her beauty was intimidating, although she was beautiful. Thick black hair fell loose to just below her shoulders, framing a strong-featured face. Broad, rounded cheekbones, a full, wide mouth, and strong nose wore like a perfectly crafted mask to the forceful personality that rode in the woman’s heavy-lidded dark eyes. She stared right at Tommy, chin high and shoulders back, a small smirk curving her lips.

She wore the all-over black of the other League people Felicity had seen, but the cut was subtly finer, the fit tailored perfectly to her generous curves and trim muscles; it suggested rank, authority. Felicity felt her gut clench in atavistic fear. Something about this woman spoke of power, the sort that might crash down on you like an avalanche, obliterating everything you were or hoped to hold.

But more than that, the woman was a singularity. She did nothing except stand there, but where most people added to the heat and weight of their environment, this woman—she carved the warmth from the world, took gravity for her own, and left only cold.

Belatedly—one slow thud of the heart later—Tommy drew in a sharp breath, his hand still firm on Felicity’s arm as he bent head and shoulders forward in a stiff, short bow.

“Thomas,” the woman acknowledged, sweeping her eyes over him and stride rolling her forward, the casual predator. Felicity watched her approach carefully, tensing, but the woman stayed fixed on Tommy, stopping just in front of him. The curl of her mouth deepened smugly as she lifted one long-fingered small hand under Tommy’s chin. He straightened, and the woman flicked a glance at Felicity before returning her attention to Tommy, hand dropping back to her side. “Taking your pet for a walk?”

Felicity sucked in a quick breath, the blood under her skin beginning to simmer, heat climbing her throat to sit in her cheeks and behind her eyes.

Tommy raised his gaze to the woman’s as if lead weighed his eyes down, like it was a feat of strength to accomplish and hold. Felicity hadn’t seen his face so carefully poured empty in weeks. In a meticulously neutral tone, he answered, “The doctor required a followup to assess any remaining damage from al-Dhi’b’s transgression.” He hesitated, pulled his spine up and breathed deep. “My apologies for the lack of a fitting reception, I wasn’t informed you had arrived.” Tommy blinked, lips pressing, a flicker. “Or that you were coming.”

Holding herself very, very still, Felicity swallowed thickly. She tipped her face down, but kept her eyes on the close-pressed threat. Something in the woman’s dusky skin, her square jaw was naggingly _familiar_.

The woman raised one dark slash of an eyebrow, her smile shrinking, hardening. “You and what happens under your watch are my responsibility, _ṣifr_. I have come to clean up your mess.” She raised her hand again, and Felicity’s eyes were drawn to the shine on her black-painted, sharply-pointed fingernails as she trailed them slow and light from the skin of Tommy’s throat down his shirtfront. His adam’s apple bobbed, but he didn’t so much as blink. Tipping her head to one side, the woman’s humor vanished from her face like smoke. “I will play your maid only once. Remember this.”

She punctuated the warning by arching her fingers and slowly, firmly pressing the points of her fingernails against Tommy’s stomach. Eyes widening, he went corpse-stiff, the hand circled around Felicity’s arm crushing closed, fingers digging bruises into her flesh. Felicity’s lips parted in soundless pain.

The woman took her hand from Tommy’s stomach and pulled with it a shuddering exhale, as if she dragged his soul on fishing line held in her fist. She smiled in satisfaction, and he offered her a jerky nod. “I will not fail or embarrass you.”

“No,” she spoke with warm condescension, her accent rounding the word. “You will not.”

Eyes sparkling in pleasure, the woman turned her attention to Felicity as if Tommy no longer mattered. “Felicity Smoak. You seem so much smaller in person.” Felicity’s brows shot up as if the slap had been more than verbal. Smiling wide to bare her teeth, the other woman clucked her tongue in false chagrin. “How terrible. You know nothing. I will introduce myself.”

She stepped even closer to Felicity, and Tommy’s hand around her arm, still so achingly tight, shook. Despite herself, Felicity edged her weight back on one foot, but she lifted her chin, nostrils flaring in defiance her fear-stoppered throat couldn’t voice.

Gaze burning down into Felicity’s, every razor edge of the woman screaming arrogance and danger, her voice deepened in subtle ceremony that chased a chill of recognition down Felicity’s spine. “I am Talia al Ghul. Daughter of the Demon.”

With that announcement dropping through Felicity’s gut like a boulder, the woman—Talia, Talia _al Ghul_ —stepped around her like a pebble in her path, turned the corner, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ṣifr - in math, zero; also means vacant/empty. Talia is basically referring to him as nothing.


	14. No One's Here to Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only just over two weeks' turnaround this time! Cross your fingers with me, dears, that I can keep this up. This is another lengthy one, clocking in at 26 pages.
> 
> Warning: This chapter contains references to PTSD episodes, graphic violence and torture, gore, and panic attacks. This material may be difficult for some readers.

Tommy hauled Felicity down the halls by her arm, and though their pace stayed brisk and measured, it felt like they were running for cover. They didn’t speak. It was all Felicity could do to pry Tommy’s fingers loose from her arm, and they transferred immediately to her back, spanning wide, his thumb bracketed against her waist as if he had to _hold on_ to her.

Tommy stared straight ahead, never looked at her, though Felicity’s gaze flicked from their surroundings to Tommy’s profile incessantly. He was white as a sheet, lips bloodless and pressed as tight as a seal.

When they reached their hallway, he began to shake.

Felicity almost didn’t notice; he’d been trembling since Talia had left them and it had taken him thirty seconds to uproot his feet from the floor and move them forward again. She’d gotten used to the subtle quake running through him, and the buzz of adrenaline and her own racing heart nearly drowned him out. But as soon as they turned that final corner, tremors wracked him, shuddering through his limbs, his fingers twitching against her.

Twenty yards from the door, Tommy stumbled.

Just a little trip, his boot toe catching on the rough carpet; one faltered step.

Eyes widening, Felicity reacted instantly; as Tommy’s grip on her back and hip squeezed—lifeline—she caught his elbow—inhaled in shock as for a half second, she took his weight. She cast her eyes around the hall—empty, but not necessarily unwatched—and without thinking about it, without exchanging so much as a glance with Tommy… she took the lead, tugging _him_ covertly along. He let her.

“Almost there,” she breathed. “Just hold on.”

The small sound in his throat was either a whimper or a whine. That would have to be enough.

They arrived at the door and, for a moment, just stood there, Tommy staring sightlessly at the smooth white paint.

“Tommy,” Felicity hissed through her teeth. He blinked, swallowed. She shuffled close, and put her hand on his waist, a slight pressure. She kept her palm flat, touch light. He inhaled, sudden and sharp, like a diver coming up for first breath.

His own hand raised, visibly trembling, and he punched in a quick code and lay his palm on the biometric panel. Blinking, Felicity committed the numbers to memory, just in case.

The door unlatched, and Tommy shoved through it, dragging her along with him.

Inside, he let her go—Felicity exhaled gustily, wincing down at the reddened indentations of Tommy’s fingers on her arm—and turned to slam the door shut with his whole body weight, metal rattling as his unsteady hands threw the extra deadbolt.

When he was done, he leaned against the door, spine curved and shoulders hunched, head bowed. Felicity stared at him in concern, rubbing tenderly at what would surely become bruises. After a moment, she realized she could hear the high pitched whistle of his breath, too fast, too high, too shallow.

“Tommy,” she said urgently, stepping towards him. He flinched. “Tommy, come on. Come here.”

She drew up beside him and he looked at her over his arm, eyes glazed, expression a struggle. Felicity raised her hands carefully, letting him watch her before she touched his arm, tugged. She pulled again and he followed her unresisting.

He moved sluggish and clumsy as she lead him to the couch, the bloodless pale of his face slowly mottling red as he fought to pull in air.

“Was her,” he gasped as he fell heavily against the cushions, Felicity hovering over him between his knees. His eyes—rounded with white, pupils blown like wells of black—roamed wildly around the room, lighting on nothing, losing focus fast. “She—it w-was—”

Nodding along, she shushed him vehemently, trying to make him focus on her. He began to wheeze, one hand clutching at his shirt collar, the other pressed protectively over his stomach. When waving her fingers in front of his nose did nothing, she bit her lip and roughly grabbed his face in both hands, taking care not to dig her fingernails into his skin. “ _Tommy_.” His eyes snapped to hers, brows pulling into a knot over them. “Breathe,” she instructed, demonstrating a slow, deep inhale. He tried, but it caught with a choke, and to her shock, tears sprang to his eyes.

Panic rang her chest like a bell, and Felicity put one knee on the edge of the couch, grabbing Tommy’s hand from his collar and pressing the palm over her sternum. “Tommy, _breathe_. Breathe with me.”

She pressed her hand against the back of his over the swell of her lungs, in, out, in, out, until at last he was shallowly mirroring her. The hand still on his cheek slid back to cup beneath his ear, fingertips sliding into the soft, short hair and thumb resting on the ridge of his cheekbone. She searched his eyes as he came back into them, and asked a silent question.

Pressing shaking lips together, Tommy swallowed hard and shut his eyes, nodding roughly. His fingers twitched against her chest, and then he pulled his hand from under hers, turning his face away from her palm as he wrapped both arms across his belly.

Awkwardness contracting in her stomach, Felicity took her knee off the couch cushions and slipped her other hand from Tommy’s face, instantly, uncomfortably aware of how much she’d touched him. Her fingertips caught on the rising stubble along his jaw as they retreated, and Tommy shuddered.

Tucking her hands under her elbows, Felicity backed up and then sat gingerly on the coffee table, watching Tommy warily for another panic attack. He scrubbed his palms over his ribs and glared at the couch arm, lips bitten bloodless.

She opened her mouth to say his name, and as if to cut her off, he spoke.

“It was Talia that I—that I was remembering. I was _remembering_.” He screwed his eyes shut, jaw creaking he clenched it so hard, and swallowed like he might throw up. “She’s been digging around inside me.” Felicity stared in horror as his fingers dragged over his abdomen like claws, demonstrating. “She would smile… God, I remember what her hands _feel_ like, just. Fucking rummaging around. Moving around in—insi—”

He gagged, bending forward, a hand clapping over his mouth. Felicity jerked back, glancing towards the kitchen and wondering if she could run for a bowl fast enough. Tommy’s hand landed on her knee, startling her, and he squeezed once before taking it away, sitting back up.

“I’m—I’m fine,” he rasped, staring vacantly over her shoulder. She opened her mouth to argue, and he shook his head, shutting his eyes again. “God, no, I know. No, I’m not.”

He leaned back into the couch, head tipping back and the hand not clutching his stomach like he was holding in his guts scrubbed over his face. “She was—she’s been _digging around inside of me_ , Felicity.” He gulped at air, choked a hair-raising laugh. “Why don’t I have any scars?” He joined his hands over his stomach and stared up at the ceiling, voice going hollow. “Digging in my head.”

He lapsed into silence.

Felicity sat tense and waiting, stricken and nauseous, in case he continued, but Tommy shut down, closed off. She watched him openly, studying the shadows under the angle of his jaw, the sweep of his lashes as he blinked, the bob of his adam’s apple, the intermittent twitch of his fingers against his abs. He ignored her as if she wasn’t there.

Felicity sat there long enough for her ass to get numb on the unforgivingly hard surface of the coffee table. Shifting uncomfortably, she drew a breath; Tommy didn’t even blink. “I’m going to…”

She trailed off. He wasn’t listening.

Standing, she hesitated, waiting for some reaction, but when she received none she moved around Tommy’s knee and headed for the kitchen. Once there, she stood, the cool of the tile floor seeping through the soles of her slippers, and looked around, lost.

Moving almost on autopilot, she opened the fridge, stared at the contents, and pulled some out. Before she closed it, she grabbed a bottle of water, and let the fridge swing shut as she headed back to the couch.

“Tommy.” He opened his eyes, but didn’t look at her, still exactly as she left him. Sighing, she cracked open the plastic seal around the cap and touched the cold water bottle to the backs of his knuckles. He tensed. “You should drink this.”

He made no move to take it from her, so she set it on the coffee table within his reach and left him again for the kitchen.

She could have just gone to her room, shut the door, hid and hoped Talia’s presence was temporary, that two doors—and Tommy—would be enough to stand between Felicity and the menace that rolled off Talia like a chill.

But leaving Tommy alone in here, like this… it just didn’t seem…

It didn’t feel _right_.

Felicity busied herself at the stove, melting butter in a small single-serve skillet. She glanced back at Tommy while she opened the bread loaf, when she pulled a spatula from the drawer, when she pulled down a pair of plates. She checked on him nervously, but he never moved that she saw.

Several minutes later, she rounded the couch again, a plate in each hand and the smell of butter and melted cheese permeating the living space. “Tommy.” He didn’t so much as glance at her. “I made grilled cheese. You should eat.”

She stood by his knee, waiting to be acknowledged, but he stared straight ahead, his arms still wrapped loosely around his middle. Sighing, Felicity set one of the plates on the coffee table in front of him. Her eyes lit on the water bottle before her fingertips slipped free of the plate; he’d half emptied it.

Holding tight to that small relief, Felicity took her plate and stepped away from him—and hesitated, eyes on the armchair she’d come to claim as her own territory. Taking a deep breath—and not quite sure, really, of her own motives—she sat instead at the opposite end of the couch from Tommy, turning her back against the arm and putting her feet on the middle cushion.

Watching Tommy in profile, Felicity set her plate in her lap and mechanically ate her sandwich, the bread and cheese sticking in the back of her throat, going down like lumps of lead to settle heavy in her belly. The taste was somehow both muted and cloying on her tongue.

After a little while, she took her plate to the kitchen and washed up the detritus of her cooking, dried the dishes, put them away. She got a water bottle for herself and sipped at it idly, wandering rootless around the living area, from kitchen sink to table to bookshelf. At one point she stopped at the front door, staring at the blank wood with a mounting dread.

Felicity didn’t know what to do now.

She’d finally felt like she was getting somewhere, regaining some small toehold of control; she had begun to make plans.

But Talia— _Talia al Ghul_ —was a wildcard Felicity had never anticipated.

She must surely be related to Nyssa—a sister? The Heir and the Daughter of the Demon. Felicity could almost laugh at herself, at the resemblance to Nyssa she’d seen in Talia without recognizing it. They shared more than a few physical characteristics, however; Talia had the same bulldozing confidence—arrogance—as Nyssa, the same air of absolute security of their grasp on the world: control of it.

But Nyssa… Felicity wouldn’t say she was _warmer_ , exactly. Or safer. Or kinder. But while Nyssa was unquestionably dangerous, she was deadly like a snake, or a tiger. Lethal because it was her nature, because she was a predator in the binary of her code.

Talia was a far more recognizably _human_ breed of monster; malicious, and pleased with the inventiveness of her cruelty.

Felicity turned and looked at Tommy, his listless posture and mute terror. She was beginning to understand that Tommy was a matryoshka doll of horrors, compacted layers of evidence of Talia’s creativity and viciousness. Evidence she felt sure they had only barely begun to unpack.

Uncertainty slithered like a cold slug in her guts as she stared at the back of Tommy’s head; uncertainty and a quiet, burning seed of anger. Felicity had had _plans_ —and now she had nothing but confusion. Confusion and an outrageous urge to—to _protect_ Tommy Merlyn.

It was ridiculous. He was an obstacle, an enemy, and a potential tool. And yet…

Felicity sighed, fidgeting with the plastic ring below her bottle cap. She didn’t know what to _do_.

For now, she let her feet carry her back to the bookshelf, and pulled down a volume at random. She went back to the couch—taking stock of Tommy, his position unchanged, his water and sandwich untouched—and settled again in the corner. She couldn’t just _leave_ him here like this. Even if there was nothing she could do for—or about—him.

All she could do was… be. Be near, and wait.

For a little while, Felicity opened the book she’d chosen—some dry little history, of all things—and tried to read.

Later, she woke curled on her side and facing the back of the couch, startled to realize she’d fallen asleep. Her mouth was horribly dry, her neck aching from being bent against the couch arm. Blinking away her disorientation, Felicity frowned vaguely and looked towards the other end of the couch.

Tommy was still sat exactly where she’d left him, still staring at the wall opposite. She shifted, and jolted in surprise as she realized she’d taken off her slippers—and that her toes rested lightly against Tommy’s thigh. One of his hands covered the arch of her right foot, his thumb curved around her ankle to rest against the back of her heel. She moved again, and his fingers slipped away, the hand resettling over his stomach once more. He never looked at her, expression unchanging.

Flushing inexplicably, Felicity leveraged herself into a sitting position, self-consciously pushing her hair away from her face and wincing at the creases she could feel the cushions had pressed into her cheek. She glanced at the coffee table and blinked; Tommy had eaten most of his sandwich while she’d dozed.

With a grimace at the twinge in her neck, Felicity turned her body and set her feet on the floor—next to her slippers, neatly lined up, and the book she’d been reading beside them.

Looking at her bare toes against the carpet—and feeling the ghost of Tommy’s fingertips against her skin—exhaustion settled over her like a snow: slow and creeping and unbearably heavy all at once. She could feel her bones creak under the weight of it.

Felicity drew in a long, quiet breath; held it; let it go. Bending, she picked up her slippers, set them on the book, and lifted them into her lap. Turning again to Tommy—still not looking at her—she lifted one hand and hesitated, then briefly touched his knee. “Tommy. I’m going to bed.”

To her surprise, he swallowed and his chin dipped in the shallowest of nods. His eyes stayed fixed on the wall across, however, and he said nothing.

She stood. For a second, she hovered there, chewing her bottom lip, feeling as if she should do or say something. But she had no more ideas than before, and every thought seemed to reach her through a haze of static.

She inhaled; the breath caught, uncertain. Unexpectedly, she blurted, “Good night.”

Good night? _Really_? It was somewhere between woefully inadequate and laughably out of place in these rooms. Cheeks burning, she silently cursed her clumsy mouth and left the room.

Tommy didn’t follow, and when Felicity shut her bedroom door, it went unlocked.

—

Felicity woke with the abrupt disorientation of a sleep forcibly interrupted. Groaning, she curled tighter into her blanket cocoon and tried to convince her body to ignore the pressure in her lower abdomen.

Her bladder insisted. Huffing grumpily, Felicity threw back the covers and sat up, face screwed up and eyes open only to slits. This was why she tried not to drink or eat very much before bed. Now that she didn’t have immediate all-hours access to a toilet, midnight bathroom runs were incredibly inconvenient, requiring a lot of banging at the door and calling petulantly for Tommy to roll out of his own bed and let her out. It was almost as embarrassing an affair as it was disgruntling.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, shuffling with childish sulkiness to the door. She set one hand on the knob and balled the other into a fist, raised to beat against the door.

To her astonishment, the doorknob turned under her hand.

“What…?” Felicity croaked. Squinting, she looked at the little indicator light beside the doorjamb. It was just as green as when she’d gone to bed. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Heartbeat tripping into a higher gear, she turned the handle the rest of the way and pulled, peering around the door, wary of some nebulous potential trap.

The hall was empty.

But it was also dimly _lit_.

Brow furrowing in confusion, Felicity felt her heart drop into her stomach with worry. Could Tommy really still be in the living room? Had he slipped into shock again, or had another panic attack? What if leaving him alone had been a mistake?

Concern—and of all things, _guilt_ —nibbled at her edges, and Felicity swung the door wide and crept cautiously into the corridor, turning immediately toward the living area, where the bright overhead light reached towards her, an illusion of warmth that sketched the shadows around her deeper and darker.

Her lower lip bitten between her teeth, Felicity’s hands took hold of the front of the t-shirt she’d gone to sleep in, her sock feet nearly silent as she moved carefully to the open mouth of the hall. She reached it and stood there, staring, startled, waiting for what she was looking at to register, to resolve into sense.

Tommy was indeed still on the couch, as she’d left him. But he had very clearly done more than just sit there after she had abandoned him for sleep.

The detritus of his meal had been cleared away, and spread across the coffee table—and the couch cushions around him—was a veritable arsenal of weapons. Taking them in, Felicity’s mouth fell softly open; she had figured it likely that Tommy had weapons in the apartment, most probably behind the locked door of his bedroom. But she hadn’t expected the array of knives, guns—rifles, semi-automatic pistols, a _shotgun_ —and even two beautifully curved and wickedly sharp matching swords that surrounded Tommy like a sea of death.

While she stared, his hands moved busily, disassembling a hefty handgun to its component parts. His fingers moved with a confidence and familiarity that was singularly chilling.

Felicity had made no sound to announce herself, voiced none of her worry or uncertainty—and yet Tommy’s chin lifted and his gaze raised to find her sure as if he’d expected her there, and her breath froze in lungs half-filled. His eyes held hers like hollow tunnels, empty and yawning with no promise of any light on the other side; all the while his hands kept moving, putting the pieces back together. The gun whole again, he pulled back the slide, and the metallic _click_ rang through the room as loud as any bullet fired.

Tommy never blinked.

Fingers tightening the knots in her shirtfront, Felicity wet her shaking lips and belatedly exhaled her shallow breath, pulling in the next one so quickly it was almost a gasp. Tommy broke his stare to set aside the handgun—and it struck Felicity, somehow, as brutally dismissive—and took up in one hand a serrated tactical knife, and a whetstone in the other.

A violent shudder poured down Felicity’s spine like a cupful of ice, and she retreated backward into the dark of the hallway.

—

Tommy was fracturing.

He couldn’t deny it any longer, couldn’t pretend control—could _feel_ the broken edges of himself grating against the fault lines, trying to force a fit, force sense, and only making the shattering worse.

Every creeping, whispering doubt and uncertainty crowded in like shadows at his borders, the whispers merging to become a drowning roar. It was snowing him under with questions, fears, outrage—memory—

_—such small hands as they force open his ribcage screaming screaming agony—the muzzle so tight leather biting his jaw tearing at the corners of his mouth—small strong hands pushing aside his stomach his intestines searching for his liver—_

_“Cut back the flesh again, he is already healing and I am not satisfied.”_

He remembered far more than he’d known had been forgotten—or buried. Remembered more than just waking submerged in the Pit.

_—cold gritty stone under his feet but the fluid clinging to his naked skin burns, smokes as he lunges forward screaming screaming throat a vibrating tunnel of rage spittle flying from his mouth fists swinging wild figures in black crowding in surrounding—_

_—a sword lances through his belly he does not stop stepping deeper into the blade too furious for pain what is blood when he has been born in acid—the sword wielder does not let go—mistake—sound echoing in the high ceilings of the chamber madness cruel desperate agony—it is laughter and it rips in his throat and ricochets around his teeth—_

_—sword hilt against his gut the wielder covered head to toe in black only eyes visible wide with fear—captures their head in his hands and presses presses pushes thumbs into those wide wide eyes pushes laughs over the screaming—POP—viscous matter thick under his thumbnails—_

Tommy held onto control and presence with a tenacity born of sheer desperation; his focus narrowed not to a tunnel, but to a straw. A thin tube down which reality—an increasingly dubious state—echoed to him like a distant call.

He kept his hands busy and his breathing deliberately measured and did his best to subsume and assimilate and acknowledge the emerging knowledge—memories, questions, _identity_ —in the background.

 _The system is running background processes while the user is idle_.

Tommy snorted darkly to himself as he sliced a strawberry over two bowls of oatmeal and thought that Felicity would be amused. Or horrified. Or maybe frightened.

She should be. Tommy was terrified.

He swallowed thickly and picked up the bowls in each hand, turning to carry them to the table where Felicity sat and watched him closely.

Her presence helped to ground him, somehow. The reminder, perhaps, that whatever thing he had become stuffed into an old and familiar shape, he was all that truly stood between her and the hungry wolves that prowled the halls beyond their door. And it was possible, he had to admit, that _she_ was all that stood between him and feeding himself to those wolves to wear their skin.

They ate their breakfast in silence; Felicity had seemingly given up trying to talk to him after he’d answered her few tentative attempts since emerging from her bedroom with efficient brevity. He knew, however, that she was only biding her time.

Sure enough, she waited only until they stood together at the kitchen sink; he washed, she dried.

Tommy handed Felicity the second bowl, the thick plastic and his hand to the wrist dripping water—

_—blood painted up to his elbows, the gore-covered sword flung down beside him, the wielder—the husk—underneath him torn open and his fingers keep ripping t e a r i n g_

_—blood painted up to her elbows, mask over her nose and mouth, hot iron salt copper slicking latex grip, slender tapered fingers gripping his face, eyes dark clinical peering into him like glass, wash of unknown syllables, hypnotic cadence that leashes the howling straining rage, listen listen, heel—_

—and shut off the tap. She wrapped the bowl in the damp towel but kept her eyes on Tommy, tilting her head. Sighing, he stiffly leaned his hip against the counter and folded his arms, waiting.

She studied his face for a long moment—he imagined she was cataloguing the bruises under his eyes, the shadow of stubble across his jaw he hadn’t bothered to shave, the drawn lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

“Did you sleep at all?” He pressed his lips together, and she hesitated, as if she wasn’t sure she should say what she held on her tongue. “You never locked me in.”

His shoulders wound tight as pulled twine, and he looked away to the small spill of water on the counter. Felicity deliberately set the dried bowl down in his line of sight with a weighty _thunk_ , and he opened his mouth to answer—

—a knock sounded firmly at the door, and both of them whipped their heads towards it, both of them cringed towards the counter—stepped closer to each other.

Tommy’s heart thundered in his chest, pumping adrenaline to flood his veins. It felt like taking the first clean breath in days, like the shutters had been pulled back on his peripheral vision. He glanced down and found his fingers bunched in the soft cotton of Felicity’s sweatshirt sleeve. He pulled, and she looked up at him, nostrils flared and brows furrowed.

“Go,” he said firmly. “Down the hall—your room, please. Now.”

Frowning, she was slow to nod, but hurried from the kitchen as soon as he released her sleeve.

Tommy drew a deep breath and rolled his shoulders back, raised his chin and firmed his jaw, and compressed compressed compressed until he was all cool tight control—

_“Control, Thomas, it is all yours, every choice and decis—”_

Tommy ruthlessly crushed the memory as quick as it unreeled, and with a rolling stride crossed to the door, throwing one backward glance over his shoulder to check Felicity was out of sight. He threw back the dead bolt, punched in the day’s code variation, and pressed his palm to the reader. The door unlatched, and he pulled it wide.

Ar-Rāqiṣ stood on the other side, bent slightly at the waist, head and shoulders bowed and fist over her heart.

If Tommy could say he _liked_ any of the assassins stationed with him—under his command—ar-Rāqiṣ might be the only one. She was honorable, serious, and efficient. He rather thought that regard wasn’t likely returned, but she showed him the same respect he showed her, and kept her thoughts to herself on whether or not she believed he deserved it.

“Ar-Rāqiṣ,” he greeted, the stone of his mask smooth if not hard.

She straightened, dressed in the gray and black fatigues they’d been issued for their assignment here, and looking distinctly pinched about the face as if she’d much prefer to be in the black canvas and linen of her traditional garb. Ar-Rāqiṣ was a tiny southeast Chinese woman, lithe and compact and, he knew, nimbly powerful. She had chosen her name well.

“Merlyn,” she nodded at him in response, muddy-hazel eyes steady on his own. Her strict expectation somehow settled him more firmly in his guise of self-mastery. “The Daughter of the Demon requires your presence.”

A sour cold like stagnant cave water slithered through his guts, and his grip on the edge of the door tightened imperceptibly.

Ar-Rāqiṣ did not look or blink. But she was watchful.

Tommy eased his grip. “Where?”

“She will await you at the Codebreaker’s cell,” ar-Rāqiṣ answered, the slightest twitch in her lip; Tommy knew it was only that, because al-Dhi’b’s actions had cast a shadow over her own honor, she would happily slip into that cell and slit the Wolf’s throat herself.

Lips pressing tight, breath coming so carefully even, he asked, “When?”

Ar-Rāqiṣ’s eyes flicked briefly over his shoulder, though he blocked the view into the apartment with his body. “She wishes you to settle your charge and join her immediately after.”

Her gaze returned to Tommy’s, cool and inscrutable. He inclined his head, acknowledgement of the message conveyed and the duty fulfilled.

Ar-Rāqiṣ turned one foot to go—but her weight held solid. She stayed. Mouth flattening in brief hesitation, she added, “She is not patient.”

Tommy blinked twice rapidly, eyebrows twitching upward. He was unsure, in this moment, if this was threat, derision… or warning. Even so.

He ducked his chin again, and as ar-Rāqiṣ turned and strode away, he murmured, “I remember.”

—

Tommy locked Felicity in her room with several hours’ of supplies and a terse explanation, and left her and her worried eyes and sharp questions behind.

He used the time it took crossing the facility to slide back into himself—or at least, the “himself” that was expected here. The one that would keep him—and by extension, Felicity—alive.

That would hopefully encourage Talia to keep her hands off him.

He suppressed every rising staccato strobe of memory, every warped, over-exposed flash of revelation. It was spackle over the cracks of a shattered foundation, but for now, it would hold.

It would have to.

By the time Tommy reached the secured corridor where he kept al-Dhi’b, the long, rolling swagger of his stride was smooth, the line of his shoulders was straight and confident, and the unruffled expression sat easily on his face like it belonged there. Only the cold sweat slicking down his spine threatened to give him away.

He faltered for only a moment at the secure-access door to the closed hall, jarringly reminded that only _he_ had had the code—and that therefore Talia must have override mastercodes to the entire facility—before briskly entering his clearances and pulling the door open.

Talia leaned against the wall halfway down the hall, directly across from the door to al-Dhi’b’s cell.

She ignored Tommy as he approached, head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed, throat long and smooth and brown, exposed. Yet Tommy knew better than to find her inattentiveness and unguarded posture weak. Any vulnerability she displayed was no more than a delicate trap, an attractive invitation to suicide.

Talia dressed all in black, distinguishing herself above the other assassins stationed at the base—on her orders—through her clothing. Every League member assigned to this operation had been issued paramilitary fatigues in gray and black; ostensibly, the fatigues were in part to make them stand out less should any outsiders catch sight of them or their movements at the base. The subtext was something altogether more insidious and layered. The assassins complied, but none seemed easy with it.

Talia’s expertly tailored fatigues were a startlingly seamless blend of the militaresque garb she’d dressed her operatives in, and the traditional, familiar and storied costume the League had hardly altered in more than a hundred years. Tommy stopped two feet from her, scanning her from efficiently braided hair to worn-in black boots; she was making a very loud statement, yet he couldn’t seem to translate it.

She waited, and Tommy bent smoothly forward into an appropriately deep bow, fist over his heart—knuckles pressing like he could force the racing beat to submit to his facade of calm and control.

“Rise,” Talia spoke like a shrug, and Tommy straightened to see her posture against the wall unchanged except that her head tipped forward, eyes lingering on him with a thin amusement. “I have been waiting, _ṣ_ _ifr_.”

No more than ten minutes had passed since ar-Rāqiṣ had turned away from his door; Tommy held his tongue. An apology would be contemptible weakness, an explanation would imply her impatience was unreasonable. Silence was safest.

Eyebrows arching, Talia straightened away from the wall, a hint of a curl in the corners of her mouth. “Let us see the traitor and how you have been keeping him.”

An instant flare of viciousness surged in Tommy’s gut, and he clung to it, stoked its burn; this, he could use. This would even be _satisfying_. Turning, he moved to the door of the cell, and spoke as he punched in the access codes. “I believe you will approve of the care I have taken with al-Dhi’b’s condition.”

Talia hummed softly at his shoulder, and he tried not to tense at her nearness. “We shall see.”

The door opened, and Tommy raised the lights. Today, al-Dhi’b did not hang; his chains anchored him to the floor by the back wall, shortened so that he either huddled or hunched or knelt. The ragged slices in the flesh of his back would make the curve of his spine uncomfortable, and the swell of his broken left knee would make kneeling untenable. His wrists were shackled together, his bound hands making the three missing fingers more apparent. He was clean, today, orange antiseptic ringing his wounds.

Tommy would be a poor custodian indeed if al-Dhi’b died of infection before his punishments had been fully extracted.

The Wolf lifted his head as Talia stepped into the cell, both his eyes too swollen to open. He cringed against the wall, remaining teeth bared, the ruin of his torn left ear bleeding down his neck as he canted his head, listening to the footsteps.

He did not speak.

Couldn’t, anymore.

Tommy remained by the door, arms folded at the small of his back and feet shoulder width apart, as Talia stopped inches from al-Dhi’b, lifting her hands and cupping the traitor’s jaw. Al-Dhi’b flinched at the touch, a muffled growl in his throat.

Talia tightened her grip, brows rising sharply and her mouth a hard line. Tommy could see her nails biting into the skin under the Wolf’s jaw, heard his breathing quicken loudly as Talia tipped his face back and forth.

“You cut out his tongue?” she asked mildly.

Tommy’s lips twitched, ruthless satisfaction searing through him. He remembered the tug of the knife hilt in his fist as he sawed it through the resistance of thick muscle; hot wash of blood before he cauterized the stump.

There was something queerly gratifying in remembering violence he knew to be true; a choice he was certain of. The ghost of al-Dhi’b’s screams echoed in his ears, and the unrepentant, lusting promises he had hurled at Tommy while he still had the tongue to launch them.

“He had nothing more of value to say.” Tommy’s voice was a low rumble; he stared at al-Dhi’b’s twitching form caught in Talia’s hands, and he briefly entertained the fantasy that he had let al-Dhi’b choke to death on his own blood.

Archly, Talia cast a look at him over her shoulder. “You had better hope not. He will tell us nothing anymore.”

The satisfaction curdled in his gut under her calculating regard, and his tightened his fists behind his back.

She turned back to the Wolf, releasing his head like she was tossing away a maggot-riddled apple. “I will bring him back to the justice of Nanda Parbat myself.”

True fear transformed al-Dhi’b’s face for the first time, and he pressed himself awkwardly into the wall, lowering onto his knees and bending his forehead to the floor. He moaned and grunted, aborted words mangled in his ruined mouth.

Talia’s lip curled. “He _begs_.”

Tommy was unmoved. Perhaps he should wish the fate of Talia’s attention on no one; it seemed he wasn’t that good or merciful.

Maybe he never was—maybe he would have felt more compassion before he’d died—but he certainly wasn’t now.

Scoffing, Talia kicked the huddled Wolf sharply in the ribs and turned on her heel. She strode past Tommy and back into the hall, and he shut off the lights and followed without a backward glance.

As he sealed the door, Talia stood beside him, her head tilted on one side, and smiled. “You will show me the facilities now. I would rather like a tour.”

Tommy turned to her and inclined his head. “Where would you like to start?”

Talia’s smile broadened. “Show me your pet’s previous kennel.”

Feeling as if he had swallowed a dagger whole, Tommy nodded again and led her away.

—

Guiding Talia through the base and daily operations was a peculiar balance of high-wire tension and gradual ease. A detached part of him remained constantly alert, watchful, afraid; the rest found a strange, comforting relief in slipping back into the role he’d so thoroughly inhabited over the last year.

A man reborn, reforged; a loyal assassin determined to prove he belonged.

(The monstrous dog, eager to come to heel, to attack on command.)

Talia presided rightfully over the process like a general reviewing her troops. She remained inscrutably smug, cutting, faintly amused. When they entered any room where any of the handful of other assassins were congregating, Tommy observed the stark disparity between the nominal, thin obedience he had been afforded by them—and the true, profound respect and fear that Talia inspired.

It was as if Tommy was coming awake in the center of a cheaply set play, and he was the only one who had not known he was an actor in a farce. The only marionette in the puppet show late to realize his were the only strings.

Tommy led her through all the main and pertinent areas of the facility—and prayed to the emptiness that was all he remembered of death that she didn’t press him as he carefully guided her _around_ the living quarters. His heart thundered and palms sweated at the thought of her in his rooms, her fingernails pressed underneath Felicity’s jaw.

They came to a stop in one of the barracks halls, and Tommy worried Talia could all but feel him vibrating with the desperation to end this tour here, to get as far from her as possible. She seemed the sort of predator who might smell his fear.

“Well,” Talia drawled, “this has been _quaint_.” She turned sideways, looking down the hall to the door of the training room they had but glanced into moments ago. “But I am feeling… restless.”

Tommy’s gut tightened, bracing.

She turned back to look at him, running her eyes over him, smirking. “Spar with me, Thomas. Show me you have not become too soft with your long leash.”

For a moment—just a very, very small moment, the pause after his lungs collapsed and before they filled—darkness swallowed the world down to a pinhole, a tiny dot of sight and sound and distant sensation—real or imagined, remembered or present—that reeled and careened sickeningly; a shipwreck on a storm-tossed sea—

—and then Tommy inhaled again, blinked, and folded slowly at the waist into an obedient bow.

His voice echoed out of his throat like it was a recording played from a distance. “You honor me.”

He rose, and Talia hummed, lips briefly pursed.

She turned on her heel and led the way into the training room. Hardly a foot in the door, and she stopped, Tommy coming to heel deferentially behind her.

Three assassins within, engaged in the physical dedication of their oaths, recognized her presence in the space of two heartbeats and halted what they’d been doing as if they had never begun it. Each bent deeply into stiff, silent bows.

Talia surveyed them, chin high, for a taut moment. With a flick of her fingers—the overhead lights glittering on the black lacquer of her nails—she dismissed them, and they made escape through alternative exits.

The room emptied, Talia strode into the center of the large, open boxy space, stepping onto the thin, firm training mats without bothering to remove her shoes. Stopping in the middle, she turned to Tommy and arched an expectant brow. “Show me I have not wasted my investment.”

Her smile broadened coldly as he rolled his shoulders back and joined her on the mats.

Tommy shook out his limbs, flexing the hands which had been clenched out of sight into fists for the better part of two hours, and took a deep breath. Meeting Talia’s eyes, he nodded, and they bent into shallow bows.

Talia struck first.

Fast as a snake, within reach and gone again, the stinging against his forearm reaching his brain before the realization he’d lifted his arm to block the blow. He wasted no time in reaction, feinting left, spinning right, catching a glancing hit to her shoulder blade before she whirled, keeping eyes on him.

Tommy gave himself over to the physicality of it, the sweat and the flex and stretch of muscle, the strike and the hit-back; his brain banked into a low hum of instinct, reflex, minute cues and microexpressions. There was no sound but the scuff and creak of their boots on the mats, impact of flesh and bone, the sharp cut of air from near misses and the harsh measure of their breathing.

Tommy held his own, but it wasn’t long before he was taking several more hits than he was landing. Gritting his teeth, he danced back from a high kick that would have caved in his ribs.

Talia grinned, teeth bared, and launched forward again; she gave him no quarter.

Simmering, Tommy let her crowd him around the mats, took every punishing blow he couldn’t avoid—and he waited.

 _There_.

She struck towards his throat and he twisted away, the momentum spinning him closer; she turned with him, but her shoulder was dropped. Tommy lashed out a fist and clipped her jaw.

Talia stumbled, tightened into a spin, snapped a kick that landed in the small of his back.

Tommy grunted, staggering away from her, and whirled despite the pain, hands up, knees bent, ready.

Talia stood straight where he had left her, teeth bared fiercely, eyes bright—fingertips tapping the reddening skin of her jaw. She laughed, low and throaty. It raised every hair on his body.

“Perhaps the most impressive you have been yet, _ṣifr_.” She licked her lips, eyes narrowing. “But you still move like a boxer. You are not brawling in college bars anymore, Thomas Merlyn.”

Her weight shifted onto her toes—and then she was in his face, under his guard, her fist in his side. He shoved at her shoulders, caught her wrist, twisted her arm. She spun in his grip, leg flying up, catching behind his neck, taking him to his knees.

“You belong now to the League of Assassins. You belong to _me_. You _will not_ disappoint me,” Talia hissed above him, twisting her leg free of his throat, grabbing his hair, pulling his head back.

He bared his teeth and held his tongue—and swept his arm behind her knee, all his weight behind it.

Destabilized, she swore and released him, leaping back—and aiming a kick at his head.

Tommy ducked, rolled backward, came up in a crouch. Through his teeth, he asked, “Have I failed you?”

Talia sneered, closing on him with a series of kicks he ducked and evaded. “Not _yet_.” He stood at last, and she struck him in the mouth; he tasted blood. “But you have not succeeded. Queen resumes his operations. Your prisoner remains defiant. And your subordinates do not fear you. You allowed a rabid Wolf to threaten what is yours, to threaten your position, and therefore to threaten _me_.”

Tommy staggered back from a succession of quick hits; shoulder, gut, thigh. “Oliver’s operation is _hobbled_ without Felicity Smoak,” he grunted, slapping aside the knife edge of Talia’s hand. “If I must make the others fear me, I will. And al-Dhi’b pays for his transgressions with blood and pain and his _life_.”

He didn’t see the kick coming until her heel smashed into his temple. Tommy crashed into the mats, hands stinging, ears ringing, blood in his mouth and vision drowning in black. Talia’s boot caught him under the ribs and flipped him onto his back.

He caught her ankle and pulled. She landed on his stomach, her weight pressing the air from his lungs even as he rolled her beneath him, scrambling to pin her arms. She laughed bitingly, her legs clamping around his waist, hips twisting.

Tommy’s back hit the mats again, and Talia kneeled over him. Suddenly, he registered the cold, thin press of a blade against his jugular, and he froze as Talia loomed over him, dark hair a tumbled curtain around her sneering face.

“I have taken chance after chance on you, Thomas Merlyn. _Ṣifr_. Perhaps you are as worthless and conniving as your father!” Tommy’s lips skinned back from his teeth, and Talia angled the blade against his skin, forcing his chin back. She peered down her nose at him. “He saw in you _nothing_. I have given you this singular opportunity to be _something_. To _belong_. Power you have not worked for, command you do not inhabit, _capacity_ I built inside of you. You think you deserve to be named?”

Rage bubbled in Tommy’s gut, where Talia’s knee pinned his weight. It flared into a geyser of fury, and he went very still beneath her, breath a rapid hiss caught in his teeth. “I _will_ earn it. I will earn _my name_.”

“Will you,” Talia hummed, tilting her head as if to study a curious specimen. “I gave you such simple tasks, _ṣifr_. Take and hold the girl, make her useful to me. One _tiny_ errand to assist another assassin in locating his target, and you could not do that, _would_ not.”

Scraping his fingernails against the vinyl mat to ground himself, Tommy held her gaze resolutely. “Annalise had nothing on her cousin. She was a dead end, and a distraction that allowed al-Dhi’b’s resentment to foment into rebellion. I prioritized.”

Free hand cupping his cheek, Talia smiled cruelly. “Prioritized, yes. Prioritized the safety and _comfort_ of your little pet. Installed her in your own rooms, and closeted in them with her.”

Tommy’s heart raced; atop him, Talia could surely measure its pace. “If Felicity is to become useful, to turn to the League—to _us_ —she must trust me. I couldn’t risk that al-Dhi’b’s were the only lusts given reign. The more time I spend with her, the more pliable she becomes.”

Lies and half truths and murkier things that were neither, or both.

“ _Pliable_ ,” Talia spat. She pressed the edge of the knife harder against Tommy’s skin; he felt it give, sucked in a sharp breath as hot blood trickled down towards his ear. “Is she soft and malleable in your hands, Thomas? Are you fucking her?” Tommy’s eyes widened, and she leaned closer—more weight behind the knife. “Your little pet project?”

Terror only sharpened the edges of his rage, his face rippling with violence as he hissed, “ _No_.”

She scoffed, switched suddenly to Arabic. “But you _want_ to, don’t you.” She laughed at him, her tongue running along the points of her incisors. “That is why you cut out al-Dhi’b’s tongue. He was willing to _take_ what you wanted, what you wouldn’t let yourself have. Not _yet_.”

A growl rose in his throat, carried on its way out of his mouth in the same language, “I am not a _rapist_.” He glared venomously up at her. “I follow the Code, and the Code forbids such violation.”

Moving the knife from his jugular—the shallow cut bleeding sluggishly—to the soft skin under his jaw, Talia pressed with the flat of the blade to tilt his face and clucked her tongue. “She is given to you.” Her eyebrows arched, full mouth a smirk, a trick, a trap—a trigger. “If she were willing, many would not think it violation at all.”

Lips skinned back from his teeth, Tommy moved fast—sharply slapped his palm against Talia’s wrist, the knife leaving his skin, spinning across the mat—planted his feet, bucked his hips. In English again, “ _I_ would.”

Laughing delightedly, Talia shoved her knee harder into Tommy’s gut, knocked aside his grasping hands—and put hers around his throat, fingernails biting into the sides of his neck, the points of her thumbnails digging at either side of his trachea. “ _Yield_.”

It was as instant and matter of fact as a flipped switch and a room gone dark.

He froze, fell back against the mat as if she had cut his strings with the sharpness of that command, his head bouncing against the vinyl with the suddenness. Eyes wide, he stared up at her. Cold, horrible shock washed over him as the blood drained from his face and he lay under her, unresisting, chest rising and falling rapidly.

Lips a smug, cruel curve, Talia stroked her thumbs up and down his throat. He couldn’t even swallow. “You really would.” She peeled her hands from his neck, placed one against his face. “Good boy.” Chuckling low in her throat, she patted him harshly three times on the cheek, more a repeated slap. “Always _such_ a good boy.”

Sighing loudly, she climbed to her feet, stood over him with her boots bracketing his shallowly expanding ribcage. Switching back to English, she commented casually, “Your accent is still terrible.”

He could only watch the movement of her legs as she stepped away from him, her shifting hair in his periphery as she bent and retrieved her knife. She stood just out of his eyeline, taunting him. “Do not disappoint me, _ṣifr_. If you cannot bring Felicity Smoak to our use through persuasion and _trust_ ,” she laughed the word mockingly, “then you will deliver her into my hands, and I will break her into pieces and put them back together in a shape that pleases me.”

Striding over him, she left.

Tommy lay boneless on the mats, and it would be another three minutes before his body would answer to him again.

—

His bones were a burden he rarely noticed carrying, but as Tommy quietly shut the front door of the apartment behind him, every joint and rib and piece of connective cartilage dragged at him, a weariness of weight he had no option of laying down.

As he moved through the main area—his step clipped from his usual stride, subdued, shuffling—each of his blossoming bruises seemed to unfurl over the inches of floor he covered. They throbbed, pulsed with his sluggish heartbeat. Everything ached.

Eyes unfocused somewhere a foot above floor level, Tommy moved down the hall and stopped at Felicity’s door. For just a moment, he leaned against it, palms flat on the cool wood, every grain an individual line digging against his forehead. He just breathed.

On the other side, a scuffing step, an indrawn breath.

“Tommy?”

His lashes fluttered, and he answered with a sigh. Pushing off of the door was more effort than it should have been. Tommy disarmed the lock and stepped back until his heels hit the opposite wall. Only as the knob turned did it occur to him he might ought to have cleaned himself up first. Or maybe turned on some lights.

The light from Felicity’s bedroom washed over him as the door swung wider, and Tommy squinted at her silhouette until his vision adjusted and she resolved into details. Her expression continued to define more sharply into lines of concern as she looked him over.

“Are you okay?”

He smiled, a stilted pull of lips across his teeth, and she looked more worried. Straightening from the wall, he opened his mouth to suggest a meal—but moving into the light made Felicity’s eyes widen and lips part.

She rushed into his space, reaching up and taking his face in her hands before he could blink. He startled badly, but she paid no mind, one thumb stroking softly across the bruise at his temple, then gliding down to touch beneath the split in his bottom lip.

Tommy swallowed convulsively, his hands loosely circling Felicity’s wrists as he stared so closely into her face, sparks of outrage backlighting her eyes and tightening the scowl of her mouth. “It’s fine,” he rasped. “We sparred. She won.”

Felicity’s nostrils flared, her jaw clenching, fingertips tracing just under the edge of his jaw. “It’s _not_ fine. You look beat to hell.”

Her touch was terribly gentle, raising chills down his back; she was standing so close, her body heat warming his front. He could smell her shampoo, and his eyes followed like magnets as her teeth put indentations in her lower lip.

 _But you want to, don’t you_.

The words snapped through him like a shock of electricity and Tommy hastily pulled Felicity’s hands from his face, folding his fingers over her palms. “Well, I got my ass kicked. Happens. It’s _fine_.”

Felicity frowned up at him—and then her eyes skated down the side of his neck, and widened. “Is that _blood_?”

“I—” Tommy got no further before Felicity yanked her hands free of his, taking his jaw again and tipping his head to see the shallow cut underneath. It had stopped bleeding—or felt like it had—but he’d completely forgotten the rusty trail smearing his skin.

“Move,” Felicity growled, crowding and herding him backwards, dropping her hands to his chest and pushing.

“Felicity,” Tommy protested weakly, stumbling over his own feet. She shoved him through the bathroom door, crowding him right up to the sink counter and reaching back to flip the light switch. He winced, blinking under the bright lights, and held his hands up defensively. “This _really_ isn’t necessary, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

She placed a hand against his waist, keeping him effortlessly pinned, and leaned around him to turn on the tap of the sink. A muscle jumped in her jaw as Tommy leaned further back, the counter edge biting into the backs of his thighs. “‘Not as bad as it looks.’ Tommy, do you know how many times I’ve heard that before?”

A stone dropped through his stomach. She’d probably heard it about as many times as he’d said it, really. “This isn’t a ‘tripped and hit a doorknob’ kind of situation, Felicity.”

She straightened to standing in front of him again, wielding a damp brown washcloth. Her eyes on his were angry and solemn. “I’m not so sure it’s really all that different.”

Tommy dropped her gaze, thinking of Talia’s weight holding him down—her voice stealing control of his limbs from him—and said nothing, pulse jumping. Felicity’s fingertips pressed softly under his chin—somehow so incredibly different a touch than Talia’s—and he allowed her to tip his face to the side.

He gripped the smooth edge of the sink counter with both hands as Felicity dabbed the soft, cool wet cloth over the dried blood, wiping it away back to the source. He let himself watch her face as she worked, brows furrowed in concentration, lips pulling a wince as she dabbed at the cut in his neck as if she could feel the sting herself.

He marvelled in confusion that this was happening—that after _everything_ , Felicity was so willingly inside his space, his reach, touching him of her free will. Helping him. Showing him kindness. It was foolish of her. He didn’t deserve it. Hadn’t earned it. The opposite, really.

“Damn,” she breathed, and he started. She flicked her gaze up to his, nose scrunching an apology. “It’s bleeding again, just a little.”

Reflexively, he licked dry lips and nodded.

Her eyes had darted to the motion, and she flushed and looked away, stepping back and balling up the rag in her hands. She stared at the floor, her mouth opening and hanging there for a few seconds before words fell out. “You should probably put some disinfectant on that later.”

Tommy nodded again, suddenly all too aware of the close confines of the bathroom, and how much of it they took up together. “I should—”

She nodded, stepping aside to clear the door. “I’d like to use the bathroom, have a shower. It’s been a long day.”

Tommy couldn’t help it; he laughed. It was a dark, bitter chuckle that echoed hollowly around the tiling. Felicity’s head came up sharp, and she blinked at him, the concern back in her features. Tommy shook his head, mouth a wry smirk. It pulled on his split lip, and he touched the tip of his tongue to the cut and agreed, “It definitely has been.”

He stepped away from the counter, expecting Felicity to edge around him; she didn’t. His arm brushed her sleeve as he passed.

The door shut very quietly behind him.

—

Tommy didn’t really have the energy to do more than put together salads for dinner.

Felicity emerged from the shower fresh and flush-skinned, buoyed forward on a cloud of humid air and the reassuringly clean scent of soap. He tried not to look at her too much, just absorbed the warmth she seemed to bring with her from the bathroom.

They ate in silence, though Felicity all but vibrated with checked questions. He appreciated the reprieve, but anticipated it wouldn’t last longer than the night.

The two of them each picked at their food, filling the room with the quiet noise of a meal; clinking cutlery, the scrape against bowls, crunching lettuce. It was oddly comforting, as Tommy found himself staring at the drape of Felicity’s hair over her shoulder, curling wetly against her neck and collarbone—her ubiquitous sweatshirt briefly left behind for just a t-shirt. The darker shade of her growing roots blended in an almost seamless and strangely lovely gradient when wet, fading into gold just above her ears.

“Tommy.”

She spoke softly, but he startled, blinking rapidly and meeting her eyes quickly. She was watching him closely, and his brow furrowed; a quick glance at her bowl revealed she’d finished her salad.

He hadn’t even noticed the time passing.

He cleared his throat, the rims of his ears burning. “Yeah?”

Her eyebrows knotted together over solemn blue eyes, the corner of her mouth twitching as she worried the inside of her cheek. “I think I’m just going to call it a night early, okay?”

Tommy was surprised. It couldn’t be later than eight. “Are you sure? I didn’t mean to stick you in your room all day, I thought you’d…”

Felicity nodded, hands sliding around her bowl, toying with her fork. “I’m just really tired.”

She didn’t look tired. But Tommy rather suspected he did.

Flushing, He looked down at his own half-eaten salad and nodded. “Sure. Uh. Sleep well.”

Sleep well? God, what an idiot. Yes, she should sleep well in her little prison cell. Hopefully the mattress was soft enough. Ridiculous.

“You too,” she said softly, standing.

His eyes flew to her in surprise, but she began clearing away her dishes, rounding the table for the sink. Tommy stared into his wilting greens as she rinsed her bowl behind him, stopped at the fridge for a bottle of water—and hesitated just behind his chair.

He went stiff, shoulders rigid. His heart pounded.

Felicity stepped around the table and vanished down the hall. Distantly, her bedroom door closed.

Exhaling heavily, Tommy slumped in his chair, elbows hitting the tabletop hard. He ran his hands over his face, back into his hair, laced his fingers behind his neck and stared at the front door. “Get it together.”

He sat there for a moment, rallying against his exhaustion, then cleaned up the remains of his own dinner. A shower. A shower sounded _phenomenal_.

Stopping only to lock Felicity’s door—and wrestle with the snake of guilt that writhed in his gut—he shut himself in his own room and stripped out of his fatigues—a heavy irony in the word—feeling freed of something as they hit the floor.

In the shower, he let the water run hot as it would go, head tipped back, eyes closed. He concentrated hard on the noise of the running water, let it become static that filled his mind. The heat simultaneously flared every ache and bruise to vivid life and unwound the tensions and knots of pain he’d carried and gathered over the course of the day.

He went through the motions of cleaning himself up, and out of the shower—Felicity’s worried eyes in his head—dabbed Neosporin on the cut under his jaw. He fell still, eyes dull in the mirror, fingers smeared with antibiotic cream and pressed against a jumping pulse as he recalled the sharp bite of Talia’s knife—rapid flashes of Talia’s hands, Talia’s knives, sharp bites and long red lines—and with a gasp shook himself away from the grasping hands of memory.

Scowling, Tommy stormed away from the horror and back into his bedroom. He dressed in pajamas, shoved a knife under his pillow, and collapsed face first on his bed with a groan. Nearly 48 hours awake. He just needed to be unconscious.

He lay there, eyes closed, and tried to sleep. Tried being the operative word.

He was exhausted. Every single molecule and atom wound down and sputtering, his eyes dry, itching, aching with tiredness. Yet every time he approached the edge of sleep, he slammed violently back into his body, a leg kicking, an arm jerking, every muscle spasming just to prove it _could_.

Terror rode his spine like a tattered ghost, whispering in his ear _yield_.

Heart racing, pumping thready adrenaline through his veins, Tommy growled and rolled onto his back, flinging an arm over his eyes. Desperately, he tried to shut off his mind, tried to recapture the weary ease he’d slid into at the dinner table with Felicity. Found himself reliving the soft pads of Felicity’s fingertips tracing the edge of his jaw, the warmth of her hand pressing against his chest, his waist.

Slowly, he began to relax, breathing deep and imagining the soap scent he inhaled was hers instead of his own. He sank into the mattress slow and heavy.

 _I will break her into pieces and put them back together in a shape that pleases me_.

Tommy’s eyes flew open as he jolted awake, gasping—

_—freezing cold metal at his back, under his naked skin, the table sharply tilted—she stands in front of him and cuts into his thigh, the scalpel bites deep deep he screams—blood pumps hot splashes the floor so hot the table so cold—_

_“Start the clock. I wish to see if he heals faster than he bleeds, still. He healed faster even yesterday.”_

Tommy’s jaw locked, teeth bared, a strangled whine growling in the back of his throat. His hands bunched in the sheets and the images painting the backs of his eyes changed, and it was _Felicity_ on the table, Felicity under Talia’s blade, Felicity’s screams competing with the dry notations and scratching pen—

He bolted upright, gasping, heart thundering—his knuckles creaking around the hilt of the knife he’d shoved under his pillow. Rage boiled his blood, fear rounding his eyes—the muscles in his arm spasmed, itching to move the knife, desperate to cut into anyone, _anyone_ who would threaten to make those images reality.

Nausea bubbled up in his belly—his gorge rose, he gagged—Tommy leapt from the bed and staggered into the bathroom, knees crashing to the tile in front of the toilet just in time.

He retched, emptying his stomach into the toilet bowl, clammy sweat slicking at his temples, down his spine, in the hollow of his throat.

_The more time I spend with her, the more pliable she becomes._

The words he’d said to Talia—barely even true—rang through his skull, mocking, damning.

Talia had made Tommy _pliable_ strapped to tables and chained to chairs—

_“Control, Thomas, it is all yours, every choice and decision is your own. This is what you want. This is what you need. You are so grateful. So eager to belong to us. Repeat after me: I will earn my name.”_

—and now he understood. Now he knew the cost. Knew the price Felicity would pay, willing or not, whether it was Tommy’s _persuasion_ or Talia ripping out and rebuilding Felicity’s hardwiring.

A cool shock spread over him—relief.

He couldn’t do it.

More importantly—

He _wouldn’t_.

Tommy sat in front of the toilet, finely trembling, and blinked stupidly at the white porcelain. Understanding seemed to pack his head with cotton, padding the slow shift and realignment of everything he’d thought he’d known.

Eventually, he picked himself up off the floor, flushed the toilet, and rinsed his mouth, washed his hands. And then, no longer shaking, feeling more solid and self-possessed than he had in—in trustworthy memory, Tommy went back into his room and dressed in black cargoes and a navy tee. He put his boots back on his feet, sheathing a knife inside the left one, and inserted a clip into one of the handguns from the trunk at the end of his bed. Finger alongside the trigger guard, mouth a grim, sure line, he left his bedroom and went halfway down the hall.

He stood in front of Felicity’s door for a long moment, staring down the dark of the corridor towards the front door. Talia had been unwinding so much rope for him to hang himself with, but now the threat hung over his head of Talia taking Felicity away—taking Felicity and unmaking her the way he had been unmade. He didn’t trust that Talia would wait, that she wouldn’t walk through that door and come collect her new toy, any more than he trusted his own memories of the last year.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, blowing it out, centering himself, Tommy put his back against Felicity’s door and slid down to sit before it, a living obstacle.

Talia would touch Felicity over Tommy’s dead body. He knew, he knew in his marrow that if it came to that—that she _would_. But he’d be a corpse sooner than he’d allow it to happen—much less facilitate it. It would be smarter to play along, to bide his time until she took al-Dhi’b away to Nanda Parbat. But she might come for Felicity instead, and Tommy would be prepared.

So he curved his spine against Felicity’s door, feeling steadied by the knowledge of her asleep behind it, and propped his wrists on his bent knees. He tapped the cold barrel of the gun idly against his calf, tipped his head back to stare calmly at the ceiling, and listened for a threat at the door.

He waited. Ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, darlings, we're getting close now. Only two chapters, three at the most remaining until the end of Part 2. ;) But that just means we can finally start Part 3... and I'm just gonna put this out there, but I think you'll like it.


	15. I Can't Sleep At Night (I'm Not Afraid, I'm Terrified)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks go out to Kat (SciFan77) and Kris (always_a_queen) for an enormous amount of handholding, cheerleading, and soundboarding for this chapter. And also to all of you, for your patience in me taking another five weeks to update after warning you to brace yourselves. My apologies for the possibly tortuous delay; I was moving house and also taking a break to write a birthday fic for Kris. Thirty-one pages of a very different sort of Felicity and Tommy story. ;)
> 
> Warnings: This chapter contains brief, nonexplicit flashbacks to attempted sexual assault, and moments of PTSD. This may be difficult for some readers.

Three days.

Three days Tommy waited for Talia to take al-Dhi’b from his cell and leave.

Three nights he stood or sat or slumped or paced outside Felicity’s door after she went to sleep. Always armed, always waiting, straining for a noise from the front door, for a threat or incursion.

For three days, Tommy did his best to stay out of Talia’s way without giving the impression he was avoiding her. Did his best to keep Felicity in sight as much as possible, without letting on his fears. Did his best to duck her surgically incisive questions and growing impatience. She was always, always watching him.

It wasn’t safe to talk. To tell the truth. To make plans.

Nothing was safe so long as Talia al Ghul walked the halls.

And Tommy couldn’t avoid her completely. He was her loyal assassin, and had to maintain a presence in the corridors, with the other assassins assigned to follow his orders. He trained with them one morning, early, before Felicity was awake; when he glanced up from pinning his opponent to the mats, Talia was watching at the door.

When he visited Dr. Malik to pick up Felicity’s newest prescription of supplements, Talia was with Malik in her office, the two of them standing close, heads bent over a thick file. They had been speaking quietly in Arabic when he appeared at the door; they stopped immediately. The sight of them standing together, their eyes on him cold and dispassionate and observant as hungry snakes, unnerved him deeply. It shook the core of him—already half-unmoored—even looser, set his soul rattling around inside the hollow cavity of his body.

The two of them standing before him terrified him on a visceral level, the kind that attached to scars and lessons learned the hardest way. The kind that had memories and warnings and _whys_ to go with it.

Tommy only had the gut-sick question of whether they conferred over Felicity’s file—or his.

Neither option boded well.

After returning to their rooms, he’d had to shower away the cold sweat before he could face Felicity’s scrutiny again. Her eyes felt cutting-sharp on him anyways, but for whatever reason, she took mercy, and asked him no questions that evening.

He took the silence gratefully, his bones heavy and his muscles aching with tension, his eyes dry and stinging. It would be yet another night spent pacing the hall at Felicity’s door. Another night awake.

The demons and nightmares and memories he avoided in sleep were beginning to find him wide awake, stealing up on him and spearing him with long, cold fingers whenever he stood still, whenever he relaxed, whenever he sat against Felicity’s door and let his chin dip forward.

In the whittled hours of the third night, he was a raw nerve, bloody, exposed, and fraying fast.

On the fourth dawn, Talia sent for him in the thinning darkness. He had the others all roused, and every assassin of the League present filed out to the tiny airstrip, lined up in neat rows, and saw off the Daughter of the Demon. She had al-Dhi’b bound to a stretcher and wheeled into the belly of her small plane by two of the men under Tommy’s command. She informed him blithely that she would be taking them with her.

He only bowed deferentially and agreed. He supposed the handling of al-Dhi’b’s transportation was a task far beneath her. All he could do was hope the sharp, relieved triumph didn’t show in his face that not only was she leaving, she was reducing the number of potential obstacles in his way.

She left him with one final warning.

Standing before her at the foot of the ramp into the plane’s cargo hold, she regarded him coolly. “You have three weeks, _ṣifr_. You will deliver to me a compliant Felicity Smoak, or I will consider you a failure, break you down, and strip you for parts. And then she will be next.”

Swallowing the hard lump of fear blocking his throat, he murmured a promise, the appropriate words passing off his lips without lingering in his brain, and bowed more deeply. He—and all the figures in black lined up behind him—remained bowed as Talia ascended into the plane’s interior.

When he straightened, the cargo bay was closed, the plane had begun its taxi down the runway, and the farther away Talia got, the more tautly pulled the rubber band of tension—not less.

There was so little time.

—

Toweling her hair dry after her shower, Felicity found herself lost in a snarl of questions and half-trod what-ifs—and realized, as she stood before the mirror, that she’d been standing and tracing the thin, healing white line on her breastbone in the shape of a heart.

Jaw clenching, she curled her fingers into her palm and turned away from her reflection.

Her bruises had faded weeks ago—a startling, sudden reminder she and Tommy had been living right on top of one another for roughly a month; it seemed like far longer, yet also felt too short a time for everything that had changed—but the marks they’d left remained invisible.

Felicity dressed with meticulous focus, steadying her attention on the task at hand to keep her mind circling down dark drains, caught in ever-tensing loops of memory— _“I think I want you on your knees.”_ —

“Damn it,” Felicity swore, losing her balance as she fought to pull on her left sock, wobbling on her right foot and crashing her hip against the sink counter. Nostrils flared with rapid breathing, she slowly lowered her foot to the floor, and focused carefully on the feeling of tile radiating chill up into her soles through the soft layer of cotton.

Blowing measured breaths through pursed lips, she pulled her hands into the cuffs of the oversized sweatshirt she’d never given back to Tommy and worked to center herself.

She wanted to be solid, steady, before she walked back through that door.

When Tommy had woken her this morning—he’d taken in the last handful of days to waking her with a sharp knock, rather than just unlocking her door and leaving her to get up on her own; and apparently she’d taken to sleeping through the sound of the door lock disarming, a worrying trend—he’d been tense, withdrawn.

This in itself wasn’t entirely unusual. Tommy had been tense and withdrawn since Talia had arrived, tight-lipped in the mornings, distracted in the afternoons, prowling and volatile the later the evening wore on. He was evasive and clipped every time she tried to question him further about what Talia, what the League had done to him. What they really planned for him. For _her_.

More than once he’d started to speak, and then frozen up. Even looked around, shifty-eyed and grim-mouthed.

Another worrying trend.

Logic dictated that if they’d been listened in on, recorded in Tommy’s apartment the whole time, something would have come of it by now. But Talia put Tommy on edge like nothing else. Whatever he’d remembered, whatever she’d said to him, Tommy was worse than rattled.

He was coming apart at the seams.

Steadier now, more resolute, Felicity reflexively checked to make sure her neckline hid her sternum—didn’t want to see those faint white curved lines, didn’t want that skin exposed til it was completely smooth, erased—and reached for the doorknob.

Padding down the hall, Felicity furrowed her brows at the sounds of rattling drawers, clattering cutlery, the smell of warm, sweet breakfast food.

When the living area came in sight, she stopped short, eyes rounding and mouth falling open. The coffee table was neatly overturned, one of the legs removed and laid in the center, screws neatly lined up beside it. The couch and armchair had been stripped of their cushions, and there were long, thin, strategic slashes in the sides of the upholstery. The bookcase stood naked against the wall, all the books stacked on the floor in front of it, a couple of the paperbacks looking roughly handled.

“What the hell…” A cabinet shut in the kitchen, glass clinking, and Felicity whipped her head towards the sound, frowning tensely. “Tommy?”

“In here,” he called back calmly, no hesitation.

No more reassured, Felicity held her arms stiffly at her sides to keep from wrapping them around her waist and rounded the corner cautiously.

The table caught her attention first, laid out with more food than she had seen at one time in—well, in over three months. A jug of orange juice with the paper label peeled off sat beside a dish of butter and a similarly-stripped plastic squeeze-bottle of maple syrup, and in the center was a plate bearing a stack of fluffy pancakes, another plate with fat little links of sausage on its other side. A small bowl held sliced strawberries, and a pair of plates in front of both Tommy’s usual place and her own were laden with omelets dotted with diced green pepper.

Felicity’s stomach tightened in a yearning, greedy growl, and then clenched into an anxious fist as she stared at the relative feast spread over the table.

When she turned her head, the kitchen was a disaster.

Every dish, cup, and utensil—excepting the dirtied dishes from breakfast prep—had been pulled out and stacked on the counters, every drawer and cabinet hanging open and empty. Tommy stood with his back to her, running his hand along the interior of one of the cabinets, fingernails scraping where one panel met another.

Felicity stood and gaped, taking in the mess, and the absurd oasis at the table in the center of the chaos.

Tommy glanced back at her over his shoulder, leaning deeper into the cabinet to probe along the back of the second shelf. “Hey. Pull up a chair, I’ll be there in a sec.”

Felicity stayed right where she was and made an incredulous face at the back of Tommy’s rust-orange henley. “What the hell are you _doing_?” She flung out a hand, expansively gesturing at the ordered chaos of the kitchen, the spread on the table, and the manic mess of the living area. “What _is_ all this?”

Sighing, Tommy took his hand out of the cabinet, paused with his head bowed, and turned to face her, leaning back against the counter and sliding his hands into the front pockets of his dark-wash jeans. “That,” he nodded his head at the table, “is breakfast. Everything else…” He shrugged, the motion jerky, less fluid than he probably wanted it to be. “I had to check for bugs.”

Now, Felicity let her arms loop around her waist, pressing tight over the frightened tremble in her stomach that Tommy _really_ thought they’d been bugged, spied on by his own organization.

Or possibly that Tommy was completely losing it.

She studied his face, the pasty complexion and bruising under his eyes—the smudge of weariness all the more apparent against the yellowing black eye Talia had given him days ago. Shuffling forward a step, she worried at her lip while he watched her laconically. Finally, she sighed.

“And did you _find_ anything?”

He shocked her with a broad grin, brassy and all teeth, a jarring echo back to those early days in her cell. It was unsettling. “Nope.” He wagged a finger in the air. “But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have looked. Better safe than sorry, and now it’s even safer.”

Felicity’s brow wrinkled in confusion, head cocking as Tommy pushed away from the counter to stride easily toward the table. “What does _that_ mean?”

He stopped a foot away, holding one hand out like he would scoop her forward, the other gesturing to the breakfast spread. “Come on, sit. I didn’t cook for this to not get eaten.”

Warily, keeping her eyes narrowed on him, Felicity shuffled around to her chair, standing beside it until Tommy had circled to his own seat. He tensed up at having the door at his back, but he knew better than to ask that of her. She waited til he dropped into his chair to ease down into her own.

Sighing, she carefully set her fingers on the edge of the table and ran her eyes over the food. She sucked on her bottom lip, a wrinkle between her brows at the smell of warm, buttermilk pancakes and spicy sausage, fresh fruit and sweet maple syrup. It all looked far too good to be true. She’d had much closer to what she’d consider “real food” since sharing every meal with Tommy became the norm, but this— _nothing_ like this.

The sight of all that food, food she had thought she wouldn’t see the likes of again on the inside of these walls, watered her mouth and swooped a fierce, wailing longing to be _free_ through her chest.

Felicity cleared her throat, feeling Tommy’s eyes on her, waiting. Drawing a breath, she muttered, “I feel like this has to be a trick.”

“No trick,” Tommy murmured, unexpectedly solemn. She flicked her eyes to his, and like a flipped switch, he brightened with a cheer as sharp and cold as a blade, smiling like the curve of a knife. “We’re celebrating.”

Not reassured, Felicity frowned. “Celebrating what?”

Lips tightening in that odd smile, Tommy leaned his forearms on the edge of the table, raising his eyebrows at her. “Talia left this morning.”

Felicity’s lips parted, brows creeping slowly upward. “Left? She’s gone?” She blinked rapidly. “Like, really, really gone, not just… faking you out? Testing you?”

Tommy picked up the butter knife, sighing through his nose while he turned the blade back and forth, watching the light play across the stainless steel. His voice was low, tone wry, when he answered, “Oh, she is definitely testing me.” He looked up and met her eyes, gave her a tight half smile. “But not with this. She’s taking al-Dhi’b back to Nanda Parbat.”

Felicity’s eyes went wide, lungs arresting on an inhale. Her fingers trembled against the wood grain, and she pressed her fingertips down hard, trying to ground herself in the subtle, smooth texture.

_“Go on, little one. Scream for me.”_

Her voice echoed up at of her throat, hollow; she blinked, and her fork was in her hand, fist tight around the stem like a weapon. “He’s gone?”

Tommy shifted in his chair, just enough for the scrape of the chair leg on the linoleum to snap her attention to him. Meeting his eyes, she took what felt like the first full breath in long minutes. Tommy dipped his chin and held her gaze. “On his way to his death as we speak.” Still keeping his stare locked with hers, his lips spread in a slow, cruelly satisfied smile that went nowhere near his eyes. “What’s left of him.”

She should be horrified, she knew. Repulsed. Shocked. Disapproving, at _least_.

But she kept Tommy’s gaze for a long moment, and drew in a deep, cool, _easy_ breath. Turned her fork in her grip. Mouth curling softly, she dropped her eyes to the food again and reached out her fork to stab a link of sausage, dropping it on her plate and spearing another before fetching a still-warm pancake.

She was hungry.

—

After breakfast—a disappointing portion of which Felicity had to leave on the table or pass to Tommy; her appetite wasn’t what it used to be after so long with so little—Felicity helped Tommy set the apartment to rights, starting in the kitchen.

After resettling the living area, they settled onto the furniture in what was becoming their usual habit: Felicity with a book, Tommy with weapons.

It vibrated her nerves to see his small arsenal materialize from invisibility—a formidable knife from his boot, two smaller blades from each of his sleeves, a tiny pistol from his waistband—and made her wonder if he had always been concealing arms about his person, and had only lately stopped caring that she knew, or if walking around armed to the teeth was another of the mounting signs of his growing fear and paranoia.

It made her uneasy, the slow, grinding _snick_ of his whetstone against the edge of his blades, even as she curled up tight with her book, drowsy from having eaten so much. She would have expected to the be the more alert of the two, as Tommy was always up late into the night now, and up before her. Yet Tommy hunched tensely on the edge of the couch cushions, forearms braced on his knees, hands working between them, and Felicity dozed to the metronome of preparation.

A little later, she set aside the book as unhelpful, shifted her attention to Tommy—now oiling another gun; he must have gone back to his room while she dozed, because more weapons covered the coffee table—and sized up his mood.

Leaning into the back cushions of the chair, she tucked a hand against her neck and drew a deep breath, Tommy’s head turning slightly in her direction. “Nanda Parbat,” she began.

His reaction was instant, hands freezing, shoulders bunching, a bullet pinched between thumb and forefinger; his eyes snapped up and pinned her like fired arrows.

“You said that was where Talia was taking the Wolf,” Felicity continued, satisfied with his undivided attention.

A muscle in his jaw jumping, Tommy gave a short, sharp nod.

“Is that where the League is headquartered?”

Licking his lips, Tommy set down his gun with a heavy _thunk_ , reaching an oil-smudged hand up to rub the back of his neck. His eyes rolled uneasily around the room, even now. He answered softly, grimly, “Yes.”

Briefly worrying the cuff of her sleeve with her teeth, Felicity watched his stiffening body language carefully. “Have you been there?” His body tightened so sharply it was like the photo negative of a flinch. “Is that where you were when you—when you woke up?”

Tommy scoffed, his mouth a wry shard of a smirk. “You mean when they raised me from the dead?” He flickered his gaze back to hers, his eyes hollow and dull in the bruised sockets. “Yes. For a little while.”

She pursed her lips, choosing her next question carefully—but he surprised her, volunteering instead.

“It’s where my training started. Not where it _stayed_. I mean…” His stare drifted again, narrowing distantly on the books lined up neatly on the shelves. “I think it’s where it started. I don’t—I don’t know where I was, most of the time.” He rolled his lips, nostrils flaring and eyes dropping to burn a hole in the floor—he looked oddly shamed. “It didn’t matter, at the time. I don’t think I even asked.”

Felicity lifted her head, lips parting. All that admitted ignorance and ambiguity—it was startling. “Why?”

He looked up at her, his expression suddenly stricken, lips flattened and whitened with pressure, the lines of his jaw cutting sharp he clenched it so tight. His eyes pleaded with her, begged—she didn’t know what he was asking for.

“I don’t know,” he confessed, hushed and gravelled.

Abruptly, he shoved up from the couch, walked away from his weapons, moved to the small clear space at the end of the coffee table and dropped into a round of pushups.

Felicity stared at him with rounded eyes, looked at the knives, guns on the table, practically in arm’s reach, and curled her hands tight into fists. Her fingernails bit into her palms and she tucked her lips between her teeth. Curling into a tight ball, she sat and watched Tommy compulsively work out, eyes watering from not looking at the weapons on the table.

—

They drifted through the rest of that day in relative silence, both of them lost in their own heads. At dinner, Tommy served her up a larger than usual portion of grilled chicken salad without asking her.

When she wrinkled her brow at him in confusion, he shrugged one shoulder and settled into his seat. “You’ve lost too much weight. We need to get you eating more.” Felicity blinked in surprise, but he avoided her eyes, muttering, “Should’ve done this weeks ago.”

Swallowing hard, hiding her nervous fists in her lap, Felicity sketched him a small, tight smile. “Trying to fatten me up for the slaughter?”

Tommy didn’t smile back, gaze hovering around her shoulder while he took up his fork and pulled his own salad close. “No,” he said slowly, finally raising his eyes to hers. “Trying to make sure you survive.”

He dug into his food and ate mechanically, and for long minutes, Felicity stared at him, tongue glued to the roof of her mouth, before at last she followed suit, and ate her meal.

She damn well intended to survive.

—

That night, after Felicity shuffled thoughtfully off to bed, Tommy resolved to sleep in his own, for at least a few hours. He stripped out of his clothes and pulled on a pair of black sweatpants, foregoing a shirt; the cold sweat of his nightmares would just stick the cloth to his skin, clammy, clinging—strangling.

He got as far as settling his head on the pillow.

The dark of his room sat on his chest like a demon, weighing him down, crushing his lungs into shallow, too-fast breaths.

Beyond his door, down the hall, past Felicity—sleeping, vulnerable, unprotected—a clicking _tap, tap, tap_ found the hollow of Tommy’s ear, beat jarringly down his vertebrae. Every hair on his body raised, eyes snapping wide open, and he threw back the thin blanket, rolling out of the bed to a ready, predatory crouch on the floor.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

A tiny, thin, dry noise—like the rhythmic tap of long fingernails against a door.

Eyes steady on his bedroom door, breath evening out to a steady, calm measure, Tommy reached under the bed and withdrew a curved short sword. He shuffled his fingers along the hilt, tongue running over his lower lip in anticipation as he settled his palm against the textured grip.

Slow and fluid, he rose to his feet, striding in a prowling hunch to his bedroom door. He keyed it open on silent hinges, jaw clenching tight as he eased it wide enough to slip through. Carefully, he sidled on the balls of his feet down the hall, sword at the ready.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

The insistent sound grew mockingly louder, rhythm unceasing, as Tommy drew closer, pausing half a heartbeat in front of Felicity’s door to sweep his eyes over it, make sure it was as tightly shut as it had been—thirty minutes? an hour ago?

Too long.

Long enough for—

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Tommy stilled at the mouth of the hall, balanced on the balls of one foot, the knife edge of the other. Adrenaline throbbed through his heart, blood hot and rushing in his veins. Peering narrowly into the dark and shadow, he slowly raised the sword.

_Tap. Tap._

_Tap._

The rhythm changed—

_Taptap. Tap. Tap._

—and Tommy whirled into the open on a long, sliding step, sword whistling through the air as he cleared the living area—empty—front door—shut—dining table—chairs pushed in neat—

_Tap._

Tommy spun into the kitchen, sword cleaving a high arc through the open space—no resistance—

Tommy stilled in front of the fridge, chest heaving, blade held horizontally in front of his face. Eyes wide, brow furrowing, he found the kitchen—empty.

 _Tap. Tap. Tap_.

Swallowing thickly, he turned his head towards the sink and stared.

Water dripped slowly from the faucet, one _tapping_ drop at a time into the sink basin.

All at once, the tension went out of him like cut strings, and he stumbled forward to catch his weight against the counter, laying the sword on its surface with a clatter.

The apartment was unbreached.

Talia was _gone_.

It was just a fucking leaky faucet.

Realization began to replace the adrenaline rushing through him, cold spilling through his veins, down his spine, even as his stomach twisted into a tighter knot.

Swearing viciously, Tommy slammed the heel of his hand into the countertop, shoving away and reaching over to tighten the knobs at the sink, twisting violently.

He stood and stared at the last drop gathering slowly at the end of the faucet, driving his fingers into his hair. “Jesus,” he hissed.

A leaky faucet. And he had come out swinging.

Panic climbed up his back on hundreds of pointed feet, squirmed screaming up his throat, a snake, a monstrous centipede prickling doubt against his tongue, the roof of his mouth, squirming with fear in his esophagus, curling whisper-tendril antennae against his gag reflex. Hands fisting in his hair, tears pricking at wide-open eyes and jaws clenched tight against wheezing, rushing, gasping breaths, rising gorge, Tommy turned slowly in place, taking in the empty apartment, every shape and shadow doubling as target, enemy—mockery.

He dragged one hand over his face, clamped it hard over his mouth, lips pressed against the ridges of his teeth, locked and cutting.

A leaking faucet.

But still terror nagged at his lungs, pulled at each of his ribs. What if it hadn’t been? What if it _had_ been Talia? Or any of the other assassins under his so-called command, every one of them her loyal creature, leashed to his hand by nothing more substantial than spider silk.

Three weeks, she’d said. A deadline in the truest sense.

But Talia’s lips dripped lies as surely as her hands dripped blood.

It _might_ have been her, might have been another on her order. Might have been creeping feet on soft soles, iron-strong hands and cold, implacable dedication to _obey_ —might have been a silhouette in the hall, a shadow in the frame of Felicity’s door—a knife sliding into her skin, under her sternum, rupturing her heart—might have been sheets stained in spreading red—

“ _No_ ,” he growled, squeezing his eyes shut, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples, pressure, pressure, _hold it together_ —

He couldn’t allow his guard to drop. Would not let that waking nightmare unfold.

Gradually, Tommy’s breathing slowed back to careful, even measure. He raised his hand—one tremor running through the bones, down the fingers, before it stilled, steadied—and collected his sword from the kitchen counter.

With one long, lingering glare at the front door, he shuffled lethargically from the kitchen and into the hallway.

The sword hung carelessly at his side, grip loose; the tip of the blade scraped against the cotton sweats covering his calf as he forced one heavy step after the other.

He reached Felicity’s door and turned to stare at it. Lifting a hand, he placed the curled fingers against the cool wood, spread them slowly, rubbed his palm over the door. He swayed until his forehead touched the surface, the tip of his nose mashed against the grain as he breathed through the writhing roots of fear.

Swallowing thickly, his eyes slid to the knob, then to the keypad in the wall. The indicator light on the screen glowed faint and steady green.

Tommy hadn’t been able to bear to lock her in for days. Not that she knew. Not that he told her.

For a long moment, he stared at the little green light and breathed, and willed the gnawing whispers to settle.

_What if they come what if they take her what if they hurt her what if they make her what if they already have her what if they **unmake her break her like you** — _

Tommy’s hand was on the knob, twisting it before the decision was consciously made.

He had to see her. Had to see—

The door swung open on silent hinges, Tommy’s hand splayed across the wood, pressing it wider. He stayed in the hall, the hand wielding the sword bracing his knuckles against the doorframe.

She kept the lamp on.

It burned dimly in the room, shedding heavy shadows that canvassed deep into the corners of the room. The light fell warm across the bed, shading the contours of the curled lump beneath the blanket. Blonde curls spread across the pillow, and the covers lifted, fell, as Felicity breathed.

Lips parting, Tommy let himself blink slowly; still, she was there, one small, fine-boned hand visible against the white sheet, fingers loosely curled, palm open.

Exhaling long and slow, he drew the door shut again with a hushed _click_.

His hand dropped from the knob, fingers dragging off the smooth, cold metal before it swung at his side. Licking dry lips, he turned his head to stare dully down the hall at the open door of his own bedroom.

It sat open, waiting.

He turned his face away.

Feet shuffling, he turned in place, and with a hand against Felicity’s door, leveraged himself carefully to the floor. He set his soles against the carpet, knees raised, and laid the sword across his lap. Leaned back, his spine curved against the door, the painted grain digging cool and grounding into his bare skin.

Tommy stretched an arm out, propped against his knee, and kept the other hand on the swordhilt. Head tipping back, he blinked gritty, heavy eyes, focused on the metronome of his breathing.

And waited.

—

“Have to do better than that,” Tommy reprimanded, snatching Felicity’s wrist out of the air as her fist sailed by his face. Instantly, he torqued her arm to turn her around and bear her to one knee, stepping in close and pressing on the back of her neck with his free hand.

The muscles in Felicity’s shoulder screamed of the strain, and she puffed air through gritted teeth, her hair sticking to her face with sweat. She tugged at her wrist, and Tommy angled her arm sharper, making her bite back a yelp of pain.

“Can you get out of this?” He asked, tart and mocking.

Pressing her lips together, she did her best to put a lid on the bubbling anger rising in her gut, and growled behind her teeth, “No.”

He let go of her wrist as suddenly as he’d taken it, sending her stumbling against the carpet, cradling her arm to her chest. “Then don’t get into it.”

Planting her hands against the floor, Felicity spun in her crouch, flashing a leg out and sweeping Tommy’s ankle. The surprised _whoosh_ of his breath as his leg went out from under him and he fell made her grin, teeth bared and fierce.

He was up again in a low crouch by the time she gained her feet, his brows raised appraisingly. “Better.”

She might’ve shot back a snarky retort, or a biting complaint, but after three hours of drills and sparring, she was more than a little annoyed with him.

So instead she lashed out her foot again—and caught him in the jaw before he could more than widen his eyes in surprise.

Tommy crashed back to the floor heavily, and Felicity clapped a hand over her mouth, gasping.

“Shit! Tommy!” She hadn’t expected to actually _hit_ him. He’d blocked and deflected everything she’d thrown at him since he’d dragged her from the breakfast table to clear the furniture out of the living space floor. “I’m—”

She couldn’t quite say she was sorry. Even if, as she quickly knelt down beside him, she did feel badly about it. She shouldn’t, and if she couldn’t stop _feeling_ it, she could at least not say it.

He leveraged himself slowly off the floor to a sitting position, taking his chin in one hand and working his jaw experimentally. Felicity winced at the red she could see staining his teeth, her hands hovering by his arm, his shoulders. “Are you okay?”

Carefully, Tommy sat back and ran his tongue between his bottom teeth and his lip, probing at the inside of his cheek. He must’ve bitten it when she kicked him, hard enough to draw blood. Felicity’s conscience squirmed; he’d only just really healed from “sparring” with Talia.

“Yeah,” he sighed at last. “It was a good hit.” Rubbing his fingers over his cheek gently, he met her eyes and afforded her a shallow nod. “I let my guard down, and you took advantage. Well done.”

Felicity exhaled, aggrieved, and bent her arms against her knees, sliding her hands under her hair and gripping the back of her neck. “Does that mean we can be _done_ now?”

Tommy pursed his lips at her, then winced at the sting. “I think we should go again. I want you to last at least last five minutes without me pinning or disabling you.”

Groaning, she tossed her hands, eyes rolling. “Tommy, _enough_. You’re not going to make me good enough to face off with an assassin in one afternoon, it’s just not happening.”

He rolled his eyes right back at her, his expression irritated and unimpressed. “You’re sure as hell not going to survive an assassin if you don’t _push_ yourself, Felicity.”

Throwing her hands up, she stood and paced away from in frustration, turning back to pin him with an exasperated scowl. “We have been _pushing_ me for three hours!”

He blinked, startled, and stared up at her, brows pulling together. “It’s—how long? No, that’s not right.”

She folded her arms over her chest, frowning sourly. “I’m sure it’s not exact since I haven’t seen an actual clock in months, but it’s definitely been _at least_ three hours. _Roughly_.”

His gaze went distant, as if he was consulting some internal measure of time, and came up confused with the results. Rubbing the back of his neck, he sighed heavily, bruised-dark lids fluttering shut. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe that’s enough for you today.”

Felicity scoffed skeptically. “I think it’s probably enough for both of us. No offense, but you look like death warmed over.” She grimaced. “Pardon the phrase.”

“I’m fine,” he snapped, avoiding her eyes as he rose to his feet.

Propping her hands on her hips, Felicity arched her brows sarcastically. “Right. Completely fine. Just got knocked on your ass by an underfed, undertrained computer tech, but you’re doing _great_.” He shot her a glare, moving to the coffee table shoved against the wall and snatching up his water bottle. “Seriously, Tommy, you look like hell. What’s going on with you?”

He pulled his lips from the mouth of the bottle, brows bunched incredulously. “What’s going _on_ with me? What do you think, Felicity!”

“I don’t know!” She threw her hands up, widening her eyes at him. “I think you’re running on fumes, and incredibly paranoid. But I don’t know what you’re scared of! I know you’re scared of Talia, but I don’t know _why_ , other than her being generally shit-yourself terrifying, and she’s _gone_! She left. She took al-Dhi’b and she’s gone and you’re just—spinning your wheels, jumping at shadows. What is going _on_ with you!”

Tommy had drawn up tighter and tighter the more she ranted at him, jaw clenching tight, fingers indenting the plastic of his water bottle with his grip. Now, he stared at her coldly while she waited, pulse pounding, uncertainty churning sick in her gut.

Tommy was unravelling, that much was easy to see. What Felicity didn’t know was which way the threads would fall when he was done. He vacillated back and forth between clamming up under any questioning, to haltingly volunteering murky, surprising information like he was confessing to sins he was only just discovering had been committed. He ran hot and cold, watching her like a hawk, handling her carefully, gently pushing her to eat more, train more; and then he prowled around, growling and terse and overprotective, but she was never sure if he was protecting her or himself, or if the two were the same due to proximity, collateral.

He was a shattered mirror reflecting back wildly unpredictable facets of the Tommy she’d glimpsed before his death, the shark-grinning assassin who had bound her to a chair and interrogated her for hours, the mercurial roommate-jailor who had taken care of her after her assault, and something else altogether, something all three and none and wholly unfamiliar.

Felicity was losing her grip on how to handle him, how to act or react, all her plans and machinations falling apart the more he broke down, and it was too much, too precarious in a world gone already too desperate and boxing in closer by the day. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take.

Tommy stood silent and scary-still while she cooled, breathing evening back out and posture shifting less certain, less combative the longer he waited her out. At last, stare steady and hard on her, he twisted the cap back onto his bottle of water. “I’m not doing this with you.”

Frustration flared anew, a searing flash up her spine, red-edged white across her vision. “You’re so full of shit!”

His lip curled as if she’d disappointed him, a tantrum-throwing toddler who had failed to behave. Shaking his head, he set his water bottle back down and calmly walked over to the couch to start pushing it back into place. “I’m not doing this with you, Felicity. We’re done for today.”

Bitterness curdled in her stomach, on the back of her tongue. “Right. Of course. How could I have forgotten, your word is law. After all,” she spat, “you practically _own_ me now.”

His head shot up, expression slack as if she’d slapped him, but Felicity whirled away from him, fuming, bending to snatch up her own water bottle from the floor by the armchair. She didn’t wait for him to marshal a response, stalking a wide berth around him and down the hall.

She slammed her bedroom door shut behind her.

—

Tommy regretted his reaction to Felicity’s questioning more and more as the day wore on.

After storming out on him, she emerged from her room only for meals, pointedly refusing to acknowledge him. Not that he tried to force the point. He didn’t know what to say to her. Every possibility jammed up in the back of his throat every time he stared at the back of her head, blonde curls and pale brown roots, and so he said nothing. It was easier than sorting his defensive anger, his frustration, his fear, his guilt, or his desperation into concise words.

Easier and harder.

_You practically own me_

The words weighed heavier and heavier on him as the hours passed. Coated his skin in an oily, clinging film, hung barbed hooks in his ribs. Everything about the accusation—the truth of it, the lie of it, every insinuation and context; the vehemence burning in Felicity’s voice, her eyes—pulled at those hooks, threatened to rip him open, rip him apart.

Did he even own himself?

There was so little _time_.

Felicity had accused him of spinning his wheels, stuck in a rut of fear and paranoia. She was right, he knew.

But as he turned out the lights after midnight, went to his room and pulled his guncase from under the bed, brought out a heavy, menacing black handgun and screwed on the long barrel of the suppressor, he grimly had to admit.

He just didn’t know what else to _do_.

There were both too many and too few paths open to him. Too many and too few choices to be made, and every one of them pivotal. He had too little information and too much conflicting in his head, in his chest. He was too tangled up to see his way out of the knot, every struggle seeming to bind him up tighter, ratcheting up his desperation to cut free.

So little was certain.

So little except the weight of the gun in his hand as he moved slowly back down the dark hall. The texture of the carpet under his bare feet. The drag of his cotton tee shirt as he slid down Felicity’s door to sit against it.

Eyes burning-dry and gut a sick knot, Tommy drew up his knees, and tapped the cold metal of the suppressor against his lips. The movement and sensation kept him awake, alert; the reminder, as the barrel rested hard and ominous against his mouth, dragged over his chapped lips, that there was always an exit, a way out, even if it wasn’t a good one—that kept him grounded.

As the night wore on into smaller and smaller hours, his skin hung heavy on his bones, his head a ponderous burden on his neck, chin weighted like lead as it dipped repeatedly towards his chest. He swapped the gun back and forth from one hand to the other, flexed his fingers around the textured grip, checked the clip, the chamber, the safety, all of it over and over, til the gunmetal was as clammy-warm and lethargic as his own body.

 _So little time_.

So little time, and so many dark hours of vigilance ahead.

He measured his breathing, counted every stretch of his lungs, every ragged exhale across his lips. He blinked slow, eyelids sliding down gritty, clinging, dry, sandpaper dampened by Elmer’s glue. In tiny increments, his skull rocked forward on the pivot of his spine, sliding, grating, a boulder badly balanced on a high, thin, pillar.

His chin dipped sharply and Tommy snapped alert with a gasping, swooping sense of vertigo, every muscle twitching tight, alert—gun hand coming up and aiming straight ahead before his eyes even focused down the sight.

Swearing softly, he lowered the gun and scrubbed his empty palm down his face, wincing at the catch-burn of neglected stubble. Digging his thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes, he pulled a long breath in through his nose. Clinging to the immediacy of pain, brows deeply furrowed, he raised the gun and pressed the butt hard against his temple, tapping it firmly twice.

_So little time._

Tommy waited.

—

Felicity woke suddenly to a soft noise at her door.

She screwed her face up in confusion, the windowless room and ever-burning lamplight indicating nothing about the hour, but the heaviness of her body and the vague nausea sloshing sickly from stomach to throat warned she’d had very little sleep yet.

Pulling in a deep breath, she knit her brows together and rubbed at her eyes, straining her ears for whatever had jerked her awake.

At the door, a quiet shuffle, like cloth against the wood.

Instantly, she sat up, eyes wide.

“Tommy?”

Her voice came out a tight, tiny whisper, her throat squeezed to a pinhole of fear.

No answer.

Blinking her contacts into place, Felicity carefully peeled back her blankets and eased her legs over the side of the bed, narrowing her gaze on the lock indicator light by the door.

Green.

 _Green_?

There was no way it was morning. Why would Tommy have unlocked her door and woken her already?

“...Tommy?” she tried again, hushed, hesitant. A little afraid to be answered.

Throat clicking with a hard, dry swallow, Felicity set her feet on the floor and stood, wishing she had brought a book to bed, a thick hardcover. A pisspoor weapon, but better than none.

Slowly, the rush of her breathing impossibly loud in the silent bedroom, she moved towards the door. Licking her lips, she squared her shoulders and braced her feet just to the side of the doorway, and set her hand on the knob.

Fingers curling, she tightened her grip on the cold metal, a rushing montage of horror movie images flashing through her head as she glued her eyes to the slowly turning knob.

The tumbler cleared with a near-silent _click_.

Drawing in a deep, shaking breath—Felicity yanked open the door—

—and in tumbled a body, heavy and sprawling.

Yelping, Felicity leapt back, and in a confusion of sudden, violent motion found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

For a hard-frozen second, there was nothing but harsh, panting breaths, wide blue eyes, and the hungry black finish of the gun.

Then, “Felicity?”

The gun lowered, and Felicity dragged her focus from it to Tommy’s face, haggard and startled, confused, too pale and hollow-eyed. Pulse hammering in her jugular, shock and anger bubbled up belatedly in the back of her throat. “Tommy? What the _hell_ was that!”

She gestured expansively to his awkward seat on her floor, his legs tangled and stretching across the threshold. He was rumpled and creased in black sweats and a dark purple tee shirt, feet bare and strangely vulnerable. He looked dressed for bed. Judging by the firearm he was setting the safety back on, that was _not_ where he had been.

He didn’t meet her eyes, grimacing and getting his legs under him, pulling himself to his feet with a hand on the doorknob.

Frustration rolled waves of intense heat across Felicity’s skin, and she glared at the doorway, then back at Tommy. “Answer me! What the fuck were you doing out there? Were you—were you sitting at my door? With a gun!”

Gripping the door tightly in one hand, Tommy swallowed hard and refused to look at her, the gun barrel tapping fidgety against his thigh—the long, _long_ barrel. Felicity recognized the suppressor from lessons with Digg—echoes of his calm, patient voice ricocheting painfully around in her head—and her eyes bulged. “What are you _doing_?” Her voice cracked, and he looked up, wincing as she stared at him, mouth open, fists shaking at her sides. She barked a harsh laugh, crackling like a spider-shattered windshield. “Didn’t even lock the door. Why bother! Why even _bother_ , if you’re just going to stand guard with a gun to make sure I don’t set a toe over the threshold without your say so!”

“What?” Tommy’s head jerked up, eyes going wide, tone shocked. “No!”

Felicity didn’t want to hear his _excuses_. No more lies. No more goddamn lies. “Were you going to shoot me, Tommy? Were you prepared to put a _bullet_ in me to keep me where Talia wants me?” Another scoff, half a sob as traitorous tears pricked her eyes. How stupid, to feel so _betrayed_. “How short is her leash, really? How hard did she even have to snap her fingers to get you licking her boots?”

Anger, desperation, some offspring emotion of the two blurred the harsh lines of his face. “No, stop it! Don’t you dare—I would never—you think I’m her _dog_?” His upper lip twitched, showing teeth, and the hand holding the gun gestured sharply—Felicity flinched. “You think I’m—I’d—”

“I don’t know _what_ to think!” she snapped, squaring herself up tall, bristling. “You’re creeping around my door in the middle of the night with a fucking _gun_ , Tommy! I’m your prisoner already, but lock and key isn’t enough?”

“You’re _not my prisoner_!” He shouted, ringing loud over her words.

Eyes wide, Felicity’s mouth clicked shut in shock and she rocked back on her heels.

Breathing harshly through his mouth, Tommy waved the gun at the open door. “You are not my prisoner! I’m not trying to keep you in!” Felicity shook her head, face crumpling in confusion, and Tommy took a desperate step closer to her, empty hand raised, pleading. “Your door hasn’t been locked once in a _week_!”

Unmoored, Felicity grasped at her outrage like a liferaft. “Because you’ve been _haunting_ it personally instead!”

“I am trying to keep you _safe_!” He bellowed, voice cracking on the last word, eyes wide, manic. He stepped closer again, and she shrank stiffly against the wall. “I’m not—I’m not keeping you in, Felicity! I’m trying to keep them _out_.”

He stared at her, less than a foot away, and Felicity searched his face, panting in growing confusion. Slowly, blinking, she asked, “What?”

Tommy cracked off a laugh that raised the hair on the back of her neck. Stepping back an inch, he gestured at her with the gun—the gun, she began to suspect, he had forgotten he was holding. “They want you. Talia wants _you_. Wants you to be a well-behaved, willing toy for the League. Wants your skills and your knowledge and everything you could do for her.” Sick fear swooped through Felicity’s gut and, seeing the recognition dawning in her eyes, Tommy smirked, jagged and bitter. “She wants _me_ to make that happen. To push you or manipulate you or break you for her, whatever it takes so she gets what she wants.”

Felicity pressed a hand over her stomach, skin going cold all over, and Tommy shook his head minutely, raising the gun and tapping the suppressor bluntly against his temple twice. “She doesn’t know. Doesn’t know what I know, there’s no breaking you. Doesn’t know that _I know_. I know what she did to me. I know what she’s threatening when she says she’ll do it to you if I can’t make you be what she wants.”

“What,” Felicity repeated; tiny, terrified whisper.

Her chest felt tight, her lungs constricted. The hand on her stomach drifted up to her throat as her eyes unfocused, the memory of Tommy’s nightmare screaming scraping like a knife blade in her ears.

Talia wanted to do that to _her_.

Wanted to take her and make her into what she’d made Tommy.

Coldly, comfortably monstrous; three shades _wrong_.

“Felicity,” Tommy’s voice was low, urgent, and he crowded up close to her, his empty hand hovering over her shoulder, not touching. “Felicity, she won’t. It’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.” Her eyes snapped to his, to the wild, lean determination carving his features sharp and frightening. “I didn’t get to choose—I thought, but I didn’t—I have done _so much_.”

His voice cracked over the hard spine of the words. A ragged, harsh breath dragged between his lips. He searched her eyes, imploring.

“I have done so much.” He swallowed thickly, his fingers coming up to trace the air by her cheek. “I have done so much to you. I will not do this.”

“Tommy,” Felicity said softly, uncertain, hopeless. “What are you even saying?”

He swallowed again, loud and dry; shocking her, tears sprang to his eyes, already red from god knew how much lost sleep—rest sacrificed on the altar of paranoia, in the name of standing between Talia and Felicity. “I’ve remembered things I shouldn’t have. All those choices, those decisions still feel like mine but they never _were_. But I made them. I still made them. I still hurt you.”

His free hand slapped over his mouth, just stifling a sob. He staggered back from her, the bed halting his steps as he found it with the backs of his knees.

Alarm shrieking through her like a cold wind, Felicity clutched at the front of her shirt.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, voice rough, choked with tears—with shattering regret. “I’m so sorry for everything. You’re here because of me. Al-Dhi’b touched you because _I_ put you in his reach. I won’t let her. I _won’t let her_.”

Felicity’s breath caught on a snagging gasp, tears stinging her own eyes. “How? How can you—if she did this to you, made you like this, how are you supposed to stop her? She’ll just mow you down.” She shook her head. “If she comes for me, she’s coming for you, too. There’s not enough bullets in that gun to stop her.”

He stared at her, long and grim, shoulders slowly flattening into a defeated line. Chest expanding in a deep, shuddering breath, he said softly, “I know.”

Felicity let her eyes flutter shut, the black tar of despair settling on her, thick and clinging.

And then Tommy exhaled, and spoke again. “So I’m getting you out.”

Felicity’s eyes snapped open; found his.

Lips a thin line, he nodded minutely. “It’s the only way. I don’t know how yet. I can’t—I can’t _think_. I can’t stop, can’t stand still long enough to—to see the pieces. If I stop, if I slip, she’s going to be there, they’re all watching, they’re just waiting like—like wolves. I don’t know how. But I will get you out, Felicity.”

Slowly, her fingers unclenched from her shirtfront and she took a halting step towards him. His hand on the gun tightened.

“If it kills me. I promise.”

“No.” His eyes widened at the quiet adamance of the single syllable. “Because it _will_ kill you, Tommy.” He drew a breath, but she shook her head, something cool and determined spreading slow up her spine. In her head, something _snapped_ into place. Understanding; a pattern; the way forward. “If you try to get me out, they’ll kill you, and then they’ll probably just take me anyways.”

His face slid into lines of disbelief, outrage. “I have to _try_! I can’t—I _won’t_ let her have you. They already took away the man I was. The man I have left, he can honor the Tommy who used to be, and he can stop it happening to you, too. _I_ can stop it. I just have to get you away. I am getting you out of here, Felicity.”

“We,” she insisted, eyebrows arching. “ _We_ are getting out of here.”

For a long, stunned moment, he stared at her in confusion. Shook his head. “After everything… everything I’ve done. Don’t be stupid. You should leave me behind and not look back.”

“ _You_ don’t be stupid!” she snapped, jabbing him in the chest with a pointed finger. He rocked back from the pressure, swayed on his feet. Felicity pursed her lips. “Don’t think I’m an idiot, Tommy Merlyn. This isn’t some stupid tender emotional moment where I let my naive gentle feelings get the better of me. You can forget that bullshit line of thinking _right_ now. The only way I’m—that _either_ of us is getting out of this alive is if we do this together. The last thing Talia is going to expect is both of us working together to get away from her.”

He gaped at her, brow twisted up like he couldn’t believe she was even real. Lashes fluttering, he blinked; a tear dashed down his face.

Felicity drew herself up as tall as she could, squaring her jaw and raising her chin high. “Besides,” she let a mean, tight smile carve her mouth. “I’m not above taking Talia’s toys away from her.”

He flinched and looked away, wiping a hand harshly over his cheek, and instantly Felicity felt like an asshole.

A toy was exactly what Talia had made him. A puppet who hadn’t even realized her hand was filling out his shape, orchestrating his every action, thought, and choice, until far too late.

Pulling a long, steadying breath, she stepped close enough to reach out, hesitant, and set her fingertips on his forearm. “Tommy.” She waited, pressing her fingers more firmly against his skin, until he raised his gaze, dull and shamed and scraped empty. Gently, she slid her fingers down and wrapped her hand loose around his wrist, thumb settling against his pulse. “ _We_ are getting out of here. Everything you’ve done, yes, she made you do it. And yes, it was still _you_. You still killed those people. You still stole me from my life and shut me away in a box.” He let his eyes slide shut, taking her words as his due. “And I still wouldn’t leave you behind. Just because you’re responsible for what you’ve done doesn’t mean you deserve what was done to you.”

He opened his eyes, drawing in a hitching breath. Tears spiked his lashes, and something twisted in Felicity’s chest. She squeezed his wrist and he met her eyes miserably. “That doesn’t mean I deserve what you’re offering.”

She pressed her lips together, holding his gaze solemnly. “I’m not offering you redemption, Tommy. I can’t give you that. I’m not trying to save you, either. All I’m offering you is a _choice_. Talia’s been making too many of them for you, and even the ones you can own—they weren’t good. So change that. Make _this_ choice the way you know you should. Make the choice that the person you were before would be proud of.” She licked her lips, nerves vibrating up her backbone. “Are you gonna choose to get us out of here—together? Alive? Or do you choose to not try, because that’s too hard? Do you choose to let her win?”

He shut his eyes again, more tears slipping free, and covered his mouth with his free hand, fisted it in his hair. “I can’t—I don’t—Felicity, I don’t know what the right choice _is_ anymore.” He laughed, fragile. “I don’t know what that looks like anymore. I can’t even…” His eyes screwed up tight, a frustrated growl humming in the back of his throat. “I can’t even _think_ straight. God, I’m so tired, I’m just too _tired_.” Tipping his head back, he sucked in a stuttering breath through his open mouth, dropped his chin forward again to look at her pleadingly. “I am _so tired_ , Felicity.”

“You haven’t been sleeping,” she murmured, sweeping her eyes over him, instantly sure it was true. “You haven’t been sleeping at all.”

Tommy shook his head, listing drunkenly to one side. “Couldn’t. Couldn’t risk it. Leave you unprotected like that.”

Concern ate at her gut, and Felicity knit her brows together, searching the dark circles under his eyes, the drawn lines of his face. “How long, Tommy?”

“I don’t remember,” he mumbled. “There’s been—couple hours, maybe. Here or there.” He watched her frown and shook his head. “I _had_ to. I had to keep watch.”

Drawing her lower lip into her mouth, Felicity chewed on it and debated. Finally, making a decision, she let her hand slide down Tommy’s wrist, over the fine bones in the back of his, over his knuckles. Her fingers met the cold, unforgiving shape of the gun. “I think you need to rest now, Tommy.”

“I can’t,” he insisted, practically sobbing the words. He searched her eyes—swayed on his feet again, caught his balance with a grip on her elbow. “I can’t…”

She nodded, slow and exaggerated, holding his eyes. “You can, Tommy. I need you thinking clearly. If you want to—to protect me, to get me out of here—get _us_ out of here, I need you rested and clear headed. It’s going to take both of us. Okay?”

He just stared at her mutely, miserably.

“Okay, Tommy?” she repeated softly. Carefully, she worked her fingers into his hand around the grip of the gun. “Let me take watch for a while. If we’re going to work together, you have to trust me. You rest. I’ll take this shift. Okay?”

He stared; he didn’t nod, didn’t murmur an agreement.

He let her take the gun from him. Let the weight of it transfer to her small, slender fingers, and let his hand fall slack and empty to his side.

Swallowing hard at the sudden gravity of the moment—the weapon in her hand, Tommy weak and helpless in front of her—Felicity tightened her hold on the gun, and raised her free hand, hesitantly resting it on Tommy’s chest. “Rest. In the morning, we’ve got plans to make.”

He swayed against her hand, his full weight against her palm—and with a whimper, he all but fell against her. His eyes slid shut, and his forehead met hers.

With a quiet gasp, Felicity locked her knees and went stiff. Heat flashed up her front, burned in her cheeks; ice slid down her spine. This close, she could count his eyelashes, long and soot-dark; the skin of his forehead against hers burned too warm, and the the tip of his nose jarred against hers once, twice as he wobbled unsteadily on his feet. She braced her hand against his chest firmer to keep them both upright, heartbeat thrumming against her breastbone, in her veins, under every inch of skin as his breath puffed against her face. His own heart beat slow and steady beneath her palm.

Around her elbow, his fingertips pressed and slid, index finger absently contouring the shape of the joint, the dips and points of the bone through her sleeve.

Tommy stood like that for a moment stretched thin and pliable like hot taffy. He inhaled through his nose, let it out between his lips—across hers—in one syllable. “Okay.”

Heart in her throat, she pressed against his chest until he transferred his weight back to his own legs, straightening away from her. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked so lost. Like he was waiting for her to guide him home.

More than a little afraid of that heavy expectation, Felicity took a half step back, the gun pressed hard against her thigh. “Come on, Tommy. Just—take the bed. I’ll be right here. If anyone comes, I’ll wake you.”

He nodded clumsily, and turned away, his hand sliding down her arm and dropping from her wrist before he shuffled around to the side of the bed. Sitting down heavily on the mattress, he let his head dip forward into his hands. “I’m so tired.”

“I know,” she murmured back. She watched him fall onto his side, dragging each of his legs up with him like they were weighted with cement blocks. He curled on his side, facing the lamp, blinking slower and slower, eyes opening less easily each time. Just when she thought they’d closed at last, his lashes fluttered open and his gaze slid to find her at the foot of the bed. She licked her lips. “Sleep, Tommy. I’m—I’m right here.”

He sighed, long and breathy, a deflation, and shut his eyes.

For several dragging minutes, Felicity stood and stared at him, the gun held against her stomach and her fingers pressed over her lips. She watched his body sink increment by increment into the mattress; watched his ribs bellows with deep, even breaths. His lips parted; sleep stripped him bare, vulnerable.

Stomach clenching tight, teeth worrying at her lips, Felicity tried to root her feet to the carpet.

Inevitably, she took a step around the bed. Another. Another, until she stood next to him, prone and exposed.

Arm shaking, lips trembling, very slowly, she raised the gun. Pointed the barrel at his face. Laid her finger alongside the trigger guard, and set the tip of her thumb against the safety. Sighted down her arm. Just like Digg had taught her.

Point blank.

With the suppressor, there would hardly be a sound. No alarm would be raised. Before Tommy’s corpse could finish cooling she could use his biometrics to hack the locks, slip out the door, and find her own way out.

It would be so easy.

 _So_ easy.

She stood there for what felt like hours, elbow locked, a fine tremor running through her body. Imagined the bloodspray across the pillows, the spatter against the headboard. Imagined the damnably complex problem of Tommy Merlyn solved with finality.

Imagined that headstone in Starling City, inscribed with the lie “Beloved Son,” the earth beneath it empty. Imagined Oliver’s face when she saw him again—the relief to see her home, the incredulity when she told her story. The confusion of grief and rage and… betrayal, when she told him the ending.

And she remembered.

Remembered Tommy’s hand outstretched to her beneath the bolted table in her cell. The gentle sorrow of his eyes as he sat her in the chair in his kitchen and breathed with her through a panic attack. Remembered his face in her hands as she returned the favor after Talia’s arrival. The open wound of his expression after their first sparring session. Meals they had cooked and eaten together. The gun she held now, that had sat in his hand, waiting to fire in defense of her.

The sweatshirt she wore even now that he’d never asked her to return.

The sight of the gun blurred in her vision, and when she blinked, wetness slipped down her cheek.

Tommy slept on, peaceful but for the exhaustion that so vividly rode him, the crease of worry still between his brows.

“Damn it.”

Exhaling in a rush, Felicity let the gun drop heavily back to her side. Rolling her eyes up to the ceiling, she tucked her lips between her teeth and desperately tried to master her breathing.

At last, she let her gaze drop back to the bed.

As if feeling her attention, Tommy shifted against the sheets, curling tighter into himself. He crooked one arm beneath the pillow and held the other tight against his stomach.

He looked… cold.

Shaking her head at herself, Felicity leaned across him and grabbed the edge of the blanket she’d flung off—an hour? two?—earlier, and pulled it over him. He didn’t stir.

She snatched her hand from the blanket, touched her fingertips to her forehead and turned away, moving back to the end of the bed. Mind a sick-whirling carousel of frenzied thoughts, she sat gingerly down on the mattress—her back to Tommy—and faced the door.

Set the gun in her lap. Wondered silently if she was headed finally out of trouble—or deeper into it.

She had long hours til dawn to puzzle it out. Long hours of vigilance to settle her mind and order her convictions. When Tommy woke, she needed to be sure of this course of action. Dedicated and determined.

Until she found that confidence—or the convincing facade of it put on as armor—she had nothing but time.

So Felicity waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more interlude, one more chapter. Be ready.


	16. Holding Hands While the Walls Come Tumbling Down (1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm about two weeks later than I wanted to be on this update, but I hope you'll all forgive me for it (and I hope you all had marvelous holidays.) This chapter got a bit away from me, and when it clocked in at 40 pages, I realized it might be best on you all to split it in two.
> 
> But don't worry! This doesn't mean you'll be waiting an extra month for the ACTUAL conclusion of Part 2! The first 23 pages are in this update tonight, and the final 17 will drop on Wednesday.
> 
> I hope it feels half as big to all of you as it's felt to me, and I cannot thank you enough for traveling with me this far. There's miles to go before we sleep, but for now... ;) Enjoy.

Felicity weathered the long night into the late morning, and as somewhere far beyond her reach—though not for much longer—the sun raised gold fingers into the sky and painted the dark horizon red, she found her calm.

As the hours wore on, hunger chewed at her idly, her mouth parched, but she didn’t go to the kitchen. Didn’t open the door. Leaving Tommy before he woke—alone and… unprotected—it just felt wrong.

She’d told him she would keep watch. He slept because he had _trusted_ her to keep watch.

Over the course of the night, Felicity paced, or sat on the end of the bed, or on the floor leaned back against it, the gun all the while in her hand. Eventually, wearily, she sat on the side of the bed not occupied by Tommy, her back against the headboard, the pillow in the small of her back. She shoved her toes under the blanket, her one concession to the craving for comfort, for sleep. She would keep watch, but she wouldn’t do it with cold toes.

Tommy slept, well. Like the dead.

He shifted a little here and there in his sleep, rolling onto his side or his back, the mattress groaning more throatily under his weight than it ever had beneath hers. Every time he sighed, or inhaled sharply, or moved suddenly, Felicity tensed, staring at him, waiting for him to start screaming, for nightmares to wrack his body and jerk at his strings.

He never did. She supposed he must have been beyond exhaustion.

In the whittling hours, Felicity found herself studying him.

Some people looked younger when they slept. Or more innocent.

Tommy just looked vulnerable, and tired.

Stubble shadowed his jaw, more heavily than she’d seen him allow before. It would be a handsome look, if it weren’t for the bruised half moons under his eyes. But his brow was smooth, cheeks slack, and lips soft and parted. Those thick, long dark lashes swept black crescents against his pale skin. Felicity stared, and tried to build bridges between the Tommy who lay beside her, his face pressed to her sheets and one hand outstretched, fingers inches from her leg, the Tommy who had killed, whom she had seen with blood on his hands, and the Tommy she had first met, with his charming grin and air of ease and comfortable privilege.

She failed.

But, she realized, it wasn’t because she simply couldn’t connect the two in her mind. It was that they were one and the same. There wasn’t one Tommy from before, and a different man wearing a similar face. He was just… Tommy Merlyn.

She supposed it helped that she didn’t feel, herself, like a different Felicity Smoak, separate from the girl who had existed before she’d been dragged out of bed and shoved into a van. She had certainly changed, and in ways she was likely not yet aware of, but she was just… herself.

And Tommy was himself, too. Even as he’d realized how much of the self he now possessed had been manipulated and altered, even as he seemed to regret choices he now knew he hadn’t actually made for himself—he owned it all.

She supposed she admired that. She certainly understood it.

As Felicity memorized the play of shadow over Tommy’s face in the lamplight, her fingertips memorizing the curves and edges and stippled texture of the gun’s grip, she mused that that sense of identity was something they had in common.

It seemed a fragile thing to hang survival on.

But it would have to be enough.

Tommy woke abruptly, with a sharp inhale. One sudden breath, and he went tensely still, fingertips twitching on the sheet, so close to Felicity’s leg.

She tightened her hand around the gun and bit her lip.

Tommy’s eyelids twitched, lashes fluttering. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

His gaze first swept the inches of mattress between them, then Felicity’s legs. She waited, and he hesitated. His own legs shifted under the blanket, and he took another breath—the first, she realized, since he’d woken.

Finally, he raised his eyes to hers.

“Good morning,” Felicity said softly, holding tight to the gun with both hands. “Although it’s probably closer to lunchtime.”

He stared at her, his entire body tense, and Felicity wound tighter and tighter, waiting to see—if he was himself again. If he had forgotten or thought better of his apologies and promises last night.

If he’d realized he’d given her his gun and she had her thumb on the safety.

Tommy’s lips parted with a sweep of his tongue and, very slowly, he pulled an arm beneath him and leveraged up from the mattress, maintaining eye contact all the while.

“Felicity.” His eyes dropped to the gun. He swallowed thickly, and when the arm supporting his weight trembled, Felicity slid a forefinger along the trigger guard. Closing his eyes, Tommy shook his head minutely and sighed. “Thank you.”

Felicity blinked, brow furrowing.

Eyes opening on hers, Tommy cleared his throat, voice lowering to a solemn hush. “Thank you,” he said again, “for—keeping watch.”

He shifted again, moving beneath the sheets to sit against the pillows, hands conspicuous and open in his lap.

Felicity let out a slow, quiet breath, and relaxed her hands around the gun grip. “You needed the sleep. How are you feeling?”

Tommy flushed, cutting his gaze away from her and lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck. “Um. Better. Listen, I’m sorry—”

“Good,” she interrupted forcefully. “That you’re feeling better.”

He looked at her again, expression guarded, blue eyes quizzical.

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she pried one hand free from the gun, reached over, and took Tommy’s wrist in an iron grip. His eyes flicked from her hand to her face, but he made no other move.

“Because you meant what you said last night, right Tommy?”

She had wanted the words to come out calm. Confident. Maybe even with a hint of threat. She should be embarrassed by the razored edge of desperation slicing out of her throat instead, but this was too important.

This was _everything_.

Tommy sat passively as she squeezed tighter on his wrist, and when her fingernails pinched his skin, a flinch around his eyes was his only reaction.

It hit her like a slap nevertheless, and she loosened her fingers, and with a tremble in her chin slipped them down over his hand, folding them into his palm. “Right, Tommy?”

He squeezed her fingers, steely resolve dawning over his face. “Yes,” he spoke softly but with conviction. “I’m getting you out of here.”

Relief slammed Felicity in the chest like a car crash. Exhaling gustily, she squeezed his hand back and let her head fall forward. Then, with another deep breath, she raised her head and set her jaw. “We.”

Tommy blinked; not confused, but startled.

He hadn’t believed her. Or had expected her to change _her_ mind.

Felicity raised her chin higher. “ _We_ are getting out of here, Tommy.”

His lashes fluttered, eyes shuttering briefly as he blew out a soft breath, took another, and met her gaze again. “I don’t have a plan.”

Felicity slipped her hand free of his, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and—stomach clenching into a ball of nerves—turned the gun in her grip, holding it out to Tommy. “Then we’d better get started.”

—

After parting briefly for morning necessities, they regrouped in the kitchen.

In silence, they prepared a simple breakfast of oatmeal and fruit, side by side. Felicity brewed hot, strong tea and added plenty of sugar. After her long and nearly sleepless night, she wished it was coffee, but for now, tea would have to do.

 _Not for much longer_.

The jittery buzz of impatient excitement hummed electrically to life under Felicity’s skin at the thought of how soon she might be _out_ , how soon this would all be over—how soon she could be brewing herself a cup of coffee every morning again, how soon she could be _home_ —but she sucked in a deep breath and tried to wrestle the feeling down.

There wasn’t time for it, not yet. Too much hope, too much excitement, and she would be too impatient. Too eager. Make mistakes, miss things in order to hurry through. She couldn’t afford to be sloppy.

Tommy’s hands shook as he spooned honey from the jar into his oatmeal, and it dripped onto counter. He cursed.

 _Neither_ of them could afford any mistakes.

The tension snapping between them, they took their seats at the table—Tommy with his back to the door, the gun gone since they’d parted ways, but no doubt he was armed—and all the while, Tommy waited on her every move. He sat after she did, took up his spoon when she did, his eyes constantly flickering up to watch her.

It was driving her _insane_.

Sighing, Felicity let go of her spoon and slumped back into her chair—jaw clenching as Tommy mirrored her across the table.

“Tommy—just—you have to _stop_.” He tensed, brow furrowing in confusion, palms flat on the table. Irritation flashing through her like a heatwave, Felicity rolled her eyes. “I’m not holding the gun anymore, Tommy. You can stop acting like I’m going to shoot you if you move too fast.”

He froze; blinked. Very slowly, very deliberately, his posture relaxed, chest falling with a low exhale and hands cupping around the warmth of his bowl. “...Sorry. I just… I don’t know what to do.”

Felicity raised her eyebrows archly.

Tommy looked away, a muscle in his jaw working. “I’m going completely offbook here, Felicity. I have been literally _rewired_ for over a year to follow orders and let a fairy tale Code of Honor guide my every thought and decision. It’s… it’s difficult to—to shake.” His eyes flashed back up to hers and sank again to his oatmeal with a scoffing, soft laugh. “I’m a little lost.”

Felicity folded her arms over her chest and tipped her head to one side, staring at him steadily til he reluctantly met her gaze again. “Welcome to the club.” She couldn’t help the harsh tone; didn’t try. “I’ve been stumbling completely in the dark for three months, taking every cue from you just to _survive_. I’m done with it. We _both_ are. No more of this—this lead-and-follow bullshit. No orders, no programming, no directives or threats or bargains. Do you understand, Tommy?” He bit his lip, hesitant. She sighed harshly through her nose and leaned forward, hands on the table. “We’re in this together now. We work _together_. A team. Okay?”

He searched her face for a long moment. Taking a deep breath, he nodded. “Okay.”

Felicity sat back again, holding her chin high—and picked up her spoon. “Good. Now eat. The hypervigilant no-sleep-no-food thing didn’t get you anywhere good, so we need to keep up our strength, be alert and ready.” She scooped up a spoonful of oatmeal, put in her mouth, and damning politeness and embarrassment and manners, spoke around it. “And you’re gonna answer my questions.”

His own spoon halfway to his mouth, Tommy hesitated again, a shadow crossing his face. He cleared his throat, voice coming out rough and thin. “I’ll try.”

They ate for a few minutes while Felicity ordered her thoughts, grasped for her questions.

She began with a confirmation. “Talia.” Tommy’s eyes snapped to hers, waiting, alert. Felicity stirred her spoon through her oatmeal. “Talia al Ghul. Related to Nyssa?” Tommy nodded. “Sisters?”

“Yes,” Tommy twirled the handle of his spoon in his fingers, watching the light play over the metal. “Their father is Ra’s al Ghul.”

“Daughters of the Demon,” Felicity mused, remembering. And Nyssa had introduced herself—with pride—as the Heir.

Tommy nodded again, the motion cutting sharp. “The Demon’s Head. Ra’s commands the League. He’s—”

He broke off with a click of teeth, and Felicity’s gaze flew to him, wondering if she had run up on some sort of brainwashing. But Tommy only shuddered, swallowing thickly.

“He’s…” Tommy shook himself as if from the grip of memory. His focus tightened on Felicity again. “Nyssa is, by all accounts, formidable. Talia is monstrous.” He stated the last emotionlessly, stark fact. “Ra’s is something else altogether. I never actually _met_ him. I saw him. Once. If even half the things I have heard about him are true—after seeing him, I would believe them all.”

Felicity felt a leaden drop of fear slide down her spine, brows twitching together and mouth pulling into a hard frown. “Is he someone we need to worry about?”

Tommy’s eyes fell to the contents of his bowl again, spoon spinning slowly in the oatmeal. He opened his mouth, and for a moment nothing came out. He licked his lips. “I pray not.”

“Tommy,” Felicity said urgently. “Is Ra’s al Ghul someone we need to worry about _now_? In trying to get out of here?”

He breathed deeply and raised his eyes to hers again. “No. This— _I_ am Talia’s project. Ra’s has never been involved. Not to any of my knowledge.”

“Okay,” Felicity said uneasily. “That’s… going to have to be good enough, then.” She pushed her bowl away, chewing on her lip as she thought. “We need to assess our obstacles and our resources. How many people are out there? Between us and freedom.”

Tommy sat back in his chair, dropping his spoon into his bowl carelessly. It seemed they were both done with breakfast. “I was given command of eleven assassins in this detachment. Talia requisitioned two of them when she removed al-Dhi’b, so there are still seven to contend with. Other than the assassins, there are a half dozen contracted staff. They’re not fighters, they’re maintenance, cooks, background labor. Their loyalty and silence was purchased, at high price, but they’re not exactly going to take up arms in an assault. And then there’s Dr. Malik.”

Felicity’s fingers curled into her palms at mention of the doctor. “She’s not League?”

Tommy’s lips twitched, some aborted smirk or snarl that vanished in a puff of breath. “No, she is. She’s no assassin, but she fully belongs to the League. Whatever Talia _did_ to me, exactly… Malik was in it neck deep.” One hand dropped to rest against his stomach, his gaze turning inward as he murmured darkly, “I remember that much.”

Felicity shivered and swallowed hard, desperately keeping her mind away from thoughts of what Malik may have helped Talia do to Tommy. “So she’s one we should watch out for.”

A sharp breath, and Tommy was looking at her again. “Yes. If at all possible, she would be best… avoided, I think.”

“I agree,” she said quickly, the doctor’s cold, gloved hands and calculating stare flashing through her mind. “So. That’s fourteen bodies in our way.”

Tommy looked oddly startled by her wording, but forged ahead. “The personnel operate in rotating, overlapping shifts, so while there’s a skeleton crew running between midnight and 4am, the halls are never actually empty. However, there’s camera coverage pretty much everywhere, and the operations center where security is monitored is pointless to attempt to break into or disable on a shoestring operation like we’ll be running, and it is constantly manned. All active-shift personnel wear comms, and even off-shit everyone keeps a walkie on hand.”

Felicity looked up at him sharply, brows arching high. Tommy grimaced in acknowledgement, but shook his head. “I have one too, but it stays secured in my room. Couldn’t exactly risk giving a tech genius access to our communications. Generally if I’m needed for an emergency or unscheduled operations, someone’s going to send a runner. And since everyone else is on comms, it’ll be the person closest to my location, so I’m never delayed more than a minute or two in the loop.”

Felicity chewed at her lip, fingertips tapping at her chin. If she could find some way to disable or even just hobble the communications system, that would make it much more difficult for the other assassins to marshal resources and information, much less respond rapidly. But that might be more than she could hope for.

Tommy regained her attention with a thoughtful sigh, his eyes narrowed and focused inward. “Our other big concern will be the facility itself. There are the cameras in the hallways and most of the rooms, and all the major exits have security measures like those on the front door here.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “Biometric access screening, codes that rotate every twelve hours, timed entry so if the door is even _open_ too long all hell breaks loose.”

Felicity glared at the middle of the table, raising a hand to her mouth and rubbing her thumb over her lower lip. “And the non-major exits?” Tommy blinked at her, and Felicity bit the inside of her cheek to hold back an impatient sigh. “Fire and emergency exits? There’s got to be something.”

Tommy’s nose wrinkled, head tipping to one side. “There are, but they’re tied into the main security grid and stay locked, _except_ in the case of verified emergency. The fire doors don’t even open unless there is an actual fire on the premises.”

Eyes narrowing, Felicity nodded. Fire, she could do, given the right tools.

“And that’s just getting out of the _building_ ,” Tommy stressed, leaning forward and tapping two fingers against the tabletop emphatically. “Once we’re out, assuming we’re not immediately pursued by a band of relentless assassins, the facility is still miles out from the nearest town. The location was chosen for its isolation and controlled access roads. We’re not far from an interstate; hell, this building that we’re in? Right by the perimeter. Assuming I could arrange access for us to one of the Jeeps, we could even just drive straight through the fencing and bypass the gates, which are guarded and monitored.”

“Are you serious?” Felicity blinked exaggeratedly, shaking her head. “Oh my _god_ , it’s a good thing you guys kept me away from like, _anything_ techie because you did _not_ make this hard.”

Tommy huffed, mouth curling wryly. “We made special arrangements to contain _you_. The rest of our attention was on keeping anyone and everyone else from getting _in_.” He propped his elbows on the table, lacing his fingers in front of his mouth and speaking behind them. “When I made these arrangements, I wasn’t exactly anticipating that I would need to plan against someone helping you break out. Especially not myself.”

Felicity offered him a tight smile. “Sounds like I’m not the only one you underestimated, then.”

Tommy sighed, eyeing her thoughtfully. “Maybe.”

Felicity pulled herself out of his gaze with an indrawn breath. “So. That’s our obstacles accounted for. What are our resources?”

Tommy sat up again. “We’re in luck there. I’m nominally in charge around here, so as long as I keep playing the part expected of me and don’t do anything absurdly conspicuous, I can get just about whatever we might need.” He pushed his chair back with a scrape of the legs against the linoleum, making Felicity’s fingers twitch, and stood. “Which is as good a segue as any.”

He gestured for her to stand, and she did warily, frowning a little. “Into what?”

“Come on,” Tommy nodded towards the hall, one hand out for her to precede him. “It’s time I armed you.”

Felicity moved away from the table, letting Tommy take the lead once they reached the mouth of the hallway. Her step faltered—only for a moment—when they left her bathroom and bedroom behind.

She had never gone to the end of the hall. Tommy’s door had always been kept locked with the same lock on the front door. There hadn’t been a point.

Tommy glanced over his shoulder at Felicity when they stopped at his closed door, then shifted aside so she could see the lock. “I don’t think I’m going to be keeping this door closed anymore, but… even so. You may as well see how this is done and know the code. This one doesn’t rotate.”

Not that it mattered, given the biometric panel. She’d still need him to get the door open, but she supposed it was a thought-that-counts sort of gesture.

The lock disarmed with a quiet chirp, and the door unlatched. Tommy pushed the door open, flipped a light switch just inside, and stepped aside.

It looked smaller than her room. That was what jumped out at her first as she crossed the threshold. After a moment, she realized it was really about the same size, with a door to the right open on a closet—suits and dress shirts sharply creased and hanging neatly within—and to the left another door beyond the bed that presumably led to another bathroom.

The bed itself _was_ smaller, a simple twin, dressed in blue and light gray. The sheets and blankets were tossed and rumpled, a stark contrast to the spartan order of everything else in the room. It was a decidedly hollow space.

Feeling chilled, Felicity wrapped her arms around her waist. “Tommy, why are we in here?”

“Hang on,” he murmured, and brushed past her.

Felicity watched him stride through the room, mouth falling slowly open and brows rising as he began.

He started at the dresser, opening each drawer and rifling through folded clothing to retrieve knives, brass knuckles, gun clips and magazines, and from the last, a tiny derringer pistol, laying them out on the dresser’s top. From the closet, he extracted a collapsible asp, the deconstructed components of an assault rifle—one she felt fairly sure she’d seen recently in pieces on the coffee table.

Then Tommy dropped to his knees beside the bed. Reaching beneath, he pulled out two heavy silver suitcases, thumping them down on the mattress before groping under the bed once more. Felicity’s eyes rounded when he came back out with a pair of swords in his hands, the wickedly curved blades gleaming under the overhead light as Tommy lay them gently side by side on the sheets.

“Wow,” she croaked, eyes on Tommy’s nimble fingers throwing back the clasps on the cases and pulling up the lids. Nestled in firm black foam were three handguns to each case, more clips of bullets, and a row of thin, razor sharp flechettes in a black matte tactical metal. “No wonder you kept this locked up. You’ve been hiding an _armory_ in here.”

Tommy rose to his feet with a hum. “At least half of this I already had on hand. But I’ve been picking up a few pieces here and there since—since…”

Since Talia. Or maybe since al-Dhi’b.

“Anyways,” Tommy scratched at the stubble on his jaw, grimacing. “There’s no point keeping you away from any of it anymore. Do you know how to use—any of this?”

Felicity surveyed the weapons cache spread across the room and gave a little shrug. “Knives seem pretty self explanatory. The pointy end goes into the other person.”

The snort that came out of him seemed to catch Tommy off guard, and he cleared his throat, unsuccessfully trying to tuck away the curling corner of his mouth. “It’s—it’s a little more complicated than that, but it’s not a bad start. We’ll work on that. The guns?”

Felicity stepped forward and pried one of the handguns up out of the foam casing, testing her hand around the grip—almost too big—hefting the hollow weight and looking into the empty clip. “I know how to hit what I’m shooting at. Well. If it’s not too far away and I’m not, like, running. And my target does me the favor of standing still. I’ve really mostly shot at paper.”

Tommy noded slowly, reaching out to gently take the gun from her and handing her a 9mm that better fit her palm. “That’ll have to be good enough.” He set the larger gun back into the case, his eyes flicking up to meet hers. “Diggle?”

Felicity nodded, eyes on the gun as she made a show of checking it over, hiding the lump in her throat.

Missing home—and her friends—hit hardest at the worst moments.

_Soon. Soon soon soon soon soon_

“So,” Tommy said softly, carefully not looking at her while she composed herself. “This is what we have.”

Felicity took a deep breath; let it go slowly. Her nerves and emotions back under control, she surveyed their weapons with a more critical eye, then turned to find Tommy watching her, waiting, looking calmer than he had in weeks.

“Now,” he said softly. “Tell me what we need.”

—

Over the next 48 hours, Tommy smuggled in piecemeal the list of items and components Felicity had determined they needed. Each time he moved through the halls with a tool of their imminent escape, tension pulled along his spine like a rope winched tighter and tighter til he felt like he would snap at any moment.

Yet he never slowed his stride or flinched. He couldn’t afford to look anything less than in control. In no way would he jeopardize his chance to get Felicity clear of Talia’s snaking, grasping reach.

He could feel the clock ticking against him as the seconds passed, like the incessant metronome of Talia’s long, bone-sharp nails _tap tap_ tapping against the base of his skull, rattling in his teeth and the hollow sockets of his eyes.

Only Felicity’s fierce determination seemed to silence it.

She kept him sane. Kept him on task.

Kept him human.

“Did you get it?”

Tommy closed the apartment door behind him, shoulders instantly easing, and raised his eyes to find Felicity sitting in his usual spot on the couch, practicing disassembling and reassembling the guns he’d laid out for her before he’d left.

Her hands moved even as she looked at him over her shoulder, brows raised expectantly.

Tommy nodded, hefting the laundry basket balanced on his hip a little higher to draw her attention. “Cleverly disguised amongst the socks and underwear.”

Felicity snorted and returned her attention to her work, snapping the last part back into place and pulling the slide back on the gun to check it. Tommy rounded the couch, nodding at her efforts approvingly. “How fast?”

She shrugged one shoulder, setting the gun down on the coffee table and wiping the oil from her hands with a rag. “Three minutes this time.”

“You’re getting faster.”

“Not that it matters,” she muttered darkly. “Putting a gun together isn’t going to get us out of here.”

“No,” Tommy agreed. “But the more familiar you are with it, the better you’ll handle yourself if you need to use it on the way out.”

Felicity rolled her eyes, head flopping back dramatically before she blew out an exaggerated breath and straightened up. Lifting a hand, she flickered her fingers at the laundry basket. “Show me what you brought me.”

One side of his mouth quirking in wry amusement, Tommy sat down beside her and set the basket on the floor between them. “Got you a little something extra in there too.”

Felicity paused in bending over the basket, eyes narrowing on his, then focused on lifting the stacked folded clothes out of the wide, squat plastic basket, setting the stacks on the coffee table next to the guns.

She uncovered the boots first, hands freezing midmotion as she saw them.

“Those are my size.”

Tommy ran his lower lip through his teeth, stomach muscles bunching in ridiculous nerves as she lifted the boots out and set them on her lap. They were sturdy, practical black boots, purloined from the stockpile of extra uniforms supplied to all of the assassins. “They should be close, anyways.”

It struck Tommy as a bit ironic that Ar-Rāqiṣ had been the closest match to Felicity’s size.

Felicity’s eyes darted to his, then back to the boots, hurriedly tugging the laces open and bracing one against the edge of the coffee table to work her foot into.

“I figured you were gonna need something a little more…” Felicity set her foot on the ground, ankle twisting left and right, putting her weight into the sole. Her chin trembled, eyes fluttering briefly shut. He knew exactly how long it had been since she’d worn _shoes_. “Real.”

Clearing her throat, Felicity pulled off the boot and lined it up neatly with its mate on the carpet. “They’re about a half size too big, but I can double up socks and they’ll work just fine. Good enough to run in, anyways.”

“I brought some clothes, too,” Tommy blurted, awkwardly scratching at his jaw. He really needed to shave. He reached out and pulled a folded set of fatigues from the middle of one of the stacks on the coffee table. “You’re gonna want something more practical than—” he gestured vaguely to the leggings and tee she was wearing, clothing that had been meticulously selected to leave her vulnerable, underdressed, to make her feel exposed and helpless. He swallowed guilt and cut his eyes away. “That.”

Felicity held the folded sturdy black clothes against her chest, fingertips tracing along the crisp edges and thick seams.

She didn’t thank him.

Tommy was relieved.

The thought of her gratitude after how long it had taken him to treat her like a human being—how long it had taken him to _care_ that she was a human being, deserved to be treated as one—churned nausea in his gut.

Felicity cleared her throat, snatching Tommy back into the present with a quickly drawn breath. She set the folded clothes aside on the cushion between them, eyes darting to his. “I hope that’s not all you brought.”

Tommy let a smile spread over his mouth, leaning over to lift away more of the stacked clothing in the basket to reveal the rest of his haul. “Well, of course I brought you something shiny to complete your new outfit.”

Felicity scanned the items in the basket and bit her lip, mouth curling a little at the corners in satisfaction. “You do know just how I like to accessorize. That’ll do very nicely indeed.”

Tommy’s smile fell to something smaller and truer. “There’s tools in there too. You can work with this?”

Felicity raised her gaze to his and nodded, her smile turning hard and a little bit dangerous. “Just what I need to cause a little bit of trouble.”

—

They worked ceaselessly through that day. Tommy ruthlessly checked and rechecked, cleaned and prepared every item in their arsenal; Felicity broke down the items he had brought her for parts and put them to better use. Watching her work was a frightful reminder that she had required so many precautions for her containment for a reason. Her hands, if not her fists, and certainly her mind were genuinely formidable.

It was a little thrilling to see up close, instead of just in files and observation reports.

A guilty thrill.

That guilt sat heavy in Tommy’s gut, souring every thought and feeling and present moment. He frustrated himself with it; it was a problem he was going to have to get a handle on.

He had done monstrous things. He had felt justified in it.

Some of it, he would do again.

He _should_ feel guilty. He deserved to.

But wallowing in it would change nothing, and be purely selfish.

Activity helped distract him from the quicksand of emotions and memories waiting to drag him under. After Felicity completed her device and Tommy made a brief run to place it at their target, he returned and dragged her up from the couch and drilled her over and over until she could break out of his hold three out of five times.

When he was satisfied she was as competent as she was going to get in one night, they put together dinner, Tommy pushing Felicity to eat a little more. The guilt nibbled at him with every bite left on her plate; everywhere he turned there was some new damage he could hardly hope to undo.

After they cleared the remains of their meal—perhaps the _last_ meal they would share together if their plans even half worked, Tommy realized as he rinsed their plates at the sink—they returned to their places in the living room to hammer out strategy. Seated together on the couch, a cushion between them, they drilled timing, facility layout, step after step of the way out, contingency after contingency.

If they were discovered. If they were surrounded. If they were separated. If they were captured.

The more they ran through these grim scenarios, the more Tommy could feel little ants of anxiety marching up his spine, little prickling, gnawing creatures crawling over his skin, biting deep, tearing, burrowing—

_tell her tell her tell her_

“Okay,” Felicity drew the word out with a thoughtful frown, surveying the scraps of paper on which they’d diagramed the halls and their exit route, scribbled notations and arrows and—in Felicity’s tight hand, equations—crowding the margins. “That’s everything. I think that’s everything. It’s… we’re ready.”

Tommy’s leg began to bounce rapidly as he leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, one hand scrubbing over his rough-stubbled jaw, his eyes cutting hunted across the lines of Felicity’s profile as she scrutinized the plans, committing it all to memory.

She gathered the pages into her hands, the sound of paper sliding over paper grating loud in his ears, dragging rough like friction burn, making his teeth clench, lips twitch—she tapped the stack against the tabletop, neatening the edges, _tap tap tap—_

_tell her tell her tell her_

“Wait.”

Felicity had started to rise and froze, turning her head to frown at him curiously.

Adam’s apple bobbing, Tommy motioned with one hand for her to sit back down. “There’s—there’s something else I have to tell you.”

Felicity lowered herself back to the couch, eyes narrowing on him warily. “Tommy…”

“Just—” he interrupted, “just listen. It’s important. Talia’s gone, so she can’t—but I don’t know if anyone else knows, and this could—could complicate things on the way out if it comes up.”

He launched suddenly to his feet, needing to move, needing to know he _could_ move, that his limbs answered to him.

“Tommy,” Felicity snapped. “Spit it out. Whatever it is, we’re going to have to deal with it somehow, and we can’t if you don’t _say_ it.”

He strode around the coffee table to pace back and forth along its length, eyes darting to Felicity as he marshalled his words—and his courage. She sat on the couch, tense and muscles bunched, one hand gripping tight to the cushioned arm closest to her, ass barely in the seat, coiled to spring at the slightest trigger.

Trigger.

_TELL HER_

“Before Talia left,” he blurted, the syllables nearly stumbling over each other in his rush. He ran a hand roughly over his hair, dragged it down the back of his neck, cleared his throat. Felicity huffed an exasperated breath and Tommy jerked like it was a gunshot. “Before she left, when we sparred.”

Felicity blinked as if she hadn’t expected that to be what was rattling him. She eased slightly against the cushions; still cautious, but listening, her eyes on him now taking stock of him like she could still catalog those bruises. “I remember.”

His hands swooped and cut through the air as he spoke, as if in defiance of the memory, every molecule demanding to be in motion. “She bested me. She had me pinned, but I was… I was struggling. And—and then I wasn’t. I _couldn’t_.” He lurched to a sudden halt, roots spreading dark, cruel tendrils under his feet, fear and reverie paralyzing him. “She spoke a word and I just… couldn’t move. I went completely limp. I couldn’t control my own body, I was just… a prisoner inside of it.”

He shuddered, the remembered plastic-and-foam of the mat under his back overlapping suddenly with the smooth bite of cold, unforgiving steel and leather straps tight around his limbs, his forehead, his jaw.

“She just… said a word?”

Tommy began breathing again with a gasp, Felicity’s voice drawing him back. He swallowed thickly and turned to face her, the feel of his own body jarring and large and heavy in stillness. “Just one word and I was helpless.” Felicity’s brows drew together, her lips parting. “One word and she owned me. Completely.”

“Neural programming,” Felicity murmured pensively, easing further back into the couch, her eyes unfocusing. Tommy shifted his weight from one foot to the other and she blinked rapidly, looking at him once more. “Brainwashing. She programmed you.”

Tommy’s brows twitched together and he looked away uneasily, feeling like that would be an—excuse, somehow. “I—yes. I think so.”

“I’m pretty sure, actually,” Felicity spoke firmly, head tipping to one side as she ran her eyes over him. “It explains a lot. But especially the—the trigger word.”

“Yes,” Tommy rasped, throat full. “That.”

Suddenly, Felicity leaned forward, curiosity sharpening her features. “Is Talia the only one who knows it? Or the only one who can use it? Was anyone else in the room with you?”

Tommy blinked, taken aback by the rapid fire questions. “I—no. She cleared the room before we began. And I don’t know. If anybody else knows, or can use it.” He chewed the inside of his bottom lip, feeling sick, the front door looming impossibly large in his periphery. “For all I know, _everyone_ out there could drop me like a sack of bricks with one word.”

“Well,” she drawled, searching his face, “there’s one way we can find out.”

Tommy sucked in a sharp breath and took an involuntary step back, understanding exactly what she was proposing.

Yet hadn’t this been the point?

_tell her tell her tell her—_

His head jerked in a clipped nod, jaw squaring hard as he forced his feet to carry him back around the coffee table. Felicity watched him as he hesitated, then lowered himself to the cushion beside her. Her knee shied from his with their closeness, and he held himself stiffly, just as eager to avoid touching.

_tell her_

Tommy opened his mouth—

—and nothing came out.

He struggled to hold Felicity’s gaze, just to focus on the thick fringe of her lashes, the blue of her irises, the searching curiosity as she looked at him. His breath sped up and his hands on his thighs clenched to fists, the bite of his nails a welcome pressure that said he still had control—for now—for now—until he gave it away to _her_ —

“Tommy,” Felicity reached out to lay a hand over his and he jolted back from her, the sudden violence of his recoil cutting her off with a gasp.

Tommy surged to his feet again, taking only three steps away, lifting his hands and bracketing his face with his hands, fingers pressing at his temples, thumbs on the ridges of his cheekbones. Not looking at Felicity, he defensively snapped, “It’s fucking terrifying, alright.”

He heard the couch creak as Felicity stood, and looked up at her, pushing his hands back into his hair and sliding them down to hook behind his neck, fingers laced.

“Tommy,” she tried again, voice deliberately calm and carefully measured. She took a step closer to him, hand raised, then another when he tensed but didn’t back away. “It’s okay.”

Tommy barked a bitter laugh and dropped his hands to his sides, tipping his chin up hard as if he could retreat from her without giving ground. “It is _really_ not okay. Locking you up? Holding your prisoner? It was wrong, it was _horrible_ ,” he snarled, flashing out a hand to snatch Felicity’s extended wrist. He shook her arm a little, tugging it higher to make her watch him rub his thumb against the thin skin over the inside of her wrist. “Imagine that—being trapped like that, no control, completely at someone else’s mercy and they are not very _merciful_ —imagine that in your own _skin_.”

When he grabbed her, for just a second, irritation burned across Felicity’s face, her pulse under Tommy’s fingers jumping high. But she didn’t pull her hand away, and as he spoke her expression softened, if only a little, with understanding—maybe even sympathy. She twisted her wrist carefully in his grasp until she could take a loose hold of his in turn, her thumb moving back and forth over his pulse, but soothing where his touch had meant to provoke.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” she said softly, holding his eyes steadily. “I meant that it’s _okay_ if,” she chewed her lips for a second, clearly reluctant, “if you don’t want to do this. You don’t have to tell me.”

Her thumb on his pulse, her gaze holding him, grounding him, Tommy slowly deflated, guilt and shame spreading over him like being submerged, slow and cold.

He swallowed hard and screwed his eyes shut, taking a deep breath. “No.” Licking his lips, he opened his eyes again and let go of Felicity’s wrist, her fingertips catching on his as he dropped his hand. “No, I do. I do need to tell you.”

Brows pulling together, Felicity tilted her head to one side and crossed her arms over her stomach, waiting.

The corner of his mouth tucking, Tommy let his chin drop in surrender. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“Fucking terrifying,” Felicity completed.

He snorted. “Yes. Fucking terrifying. But we—we need to know. This is too big to leave as a potential blindspot. Besides,” Tommy’s voice dropped, gravelled with hesitance and and hushed by fear. “If there’s anyone in this place I could—that I could _trust_ to use that word, to have that to use against me…”

Felicity’s expression slackened in surprise, eyes widening and lips parting.

Tommy gave her a very small, wry smile, a stiff attempt at bravery. “It’s you.”

He watched her throat bob with a silent gulp, and she nodded gravely, letting her hands fall to her sides. “Okay. Then, if we’re gonna do this… do you know if you just… freeze up? Or are you going to drop?”

Nerves jumped and popped in his stomach again like electrical sparks, but Tommy forced it down. “I don’t know. Talia already had me on my back when she used it.”

Chewing her lip, her face falling into lines of apprehension and concern, Felicity gave him a little nod. “Okay then. Better safe than sorry right now. We should sit down.”

Together, mirroring each other like wary animals, they reclaimed their positions on the couch, not quite a cushion between them. Felicity sat with her hands palms-up in her lap, watching him expectantly, patiently, waiting.

Tommy shifted his weight antsily in his seat, fingers tapping rapidly against his knees as he worried at his lips with his teeth. His heart hammered in the cage of his chest, heavy, rhythmic thuds, and behind each adrenalized throb, the same beat, the same words—

_tell her_

He drew a breath.

“ _Istaslama_.” Felicity blinked at him, brow furrowing and her lips pursing a little as they silently ghosted over the syllables. Fingers twitching against his legs, his eyes fixed on her mouth, Tommy cleared his throat. “That’s the word she used.”

“What does it mean?” Felicity asked, her hand absently reaching up to rub over her breastbone.

“Yield.” Tommy translated. “Basically. She tells me to give up, to surrender, and I just…”

He trailed off, revulsion cresting over him like a wave, the sickness in him rising up the back of his throat, coating his tongue with bitter resentment.

_“You belong now to the League of Assassins. You belong to **me**.”_

With a single word, he did. If he gave that word to Felicity, could he change that? Would that make the choice his somehow?

“Tommy,” Felicity spoke softly, bringing him back as she leaned towards him. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

He dragged a hand down his face, sighed shakily. Carefully he shifted in his seat so he faced forward, settling his back into the cushions behind him. He set his palms down on his thighs and tried to focus on the denim texture of his jeans. “Just do it.”

Felicity inhaled.

Tommy gulped and closed his eyes.

“ _Istaslama_.”

Tommy froze.

For a long moment, there was nothing but his thundering heartbeat, the blood rushing in his ears, and the drowning drag of air in and out of lungs, fast and shallow and afraid.

And then: “Tommy?”

Her hand covered one of his, fingers curling around his knuckles, squeezing his fist.

His _fist_.

Tommy opened his eyes. His brow pinched and his lips parted, a hitching breath pulling between them.

He tipped his chin and looked down at Felicity’s hand on his, the hand that should not have been able to curl and tighten into a ball of defiance after she had told him to _yield_.

His mouth dropped open again, a low, wordless noise escaping him.

“It didn’t work,” Felicity murmured, pulling one leg onto the couch, folding her foot beneath her. “Are you okay?”

Tommy licked his lips and lifted his hand, a shudder of relief ripping through him as he turned it back and forth, curled and uncurled his fingers. “Say it again.”

He glanced at her and she shook herself, nodding. “Are you sure I pronounced it right? Maybe that was it.”

“ _Istaslama_ ,” Tommy punched each syllable, enunciating crisp and clear, Felicity watching his lips move. He sat up straight, spine pulling away from the back of the couch as he leaned eagerly towards her. “Say it again”

“ _Istaslama_ ,” Felicity said the word carefully, watching his eyes as she rolled the word on her tongue.

Tommy grinned fiercely, feeling every muscle fold and stretch and contract. He laughed, reaching out to grasp Felicity’s shoulders. “Say it again!”

Blinking rapidly, she bit her lip and then repeated it again.

Tommy laughed in stunned relief, letting his forehead drop forward to rest against Felicity’s. “It didn’t work. Fucking Christ, it didn’t _work_.”

Felicity was stiff in his hold, her eyes round and trained on his from inches away.

Instantly, Tommy flushed and sat back, taking his hands off her. “Sorry. And thank you.”

Color suffused Felicity’s cheeks and she looked away, rubbing her palms over her knees awkwardly. She nodded. “I guess it’s not just _anyone_ who can use it, then.”

Tommy sighed, something inside him he hadn’t even been cognizant of settling. He bit his lip. “It narrows the risk, at least. Hopefully, Talia’s too controlling and paranoid to have given anyone else the keys to her toybox.”

“Okay,” Felicity said with a deep breath. “That’s… everything, I guess?”

“Yes,” Tommy agreed, silently acknowledging that there were no other landmines he was keeping from her. “In the morning, then?”

She nodded, expression sobering and mouth going grim. “For a given definition of morning. What time is it?” She reached out, and Tommy lifted his right wrist to show her his watch. She bit her lip and read the display. “Well, we’ve got about six hours. We should try to get at least a little sleep.”

Felicity stood, and Tommy tensed again, but nodded.

There was absolutely no way he was going to be able to sleep when they were so close to risking their lives for freedom. Cold dread sank in his gut, and he began to plan for another night sat at Felicity’s door, gun in hand.

“No.”

Tommy’s head snapped up in surprise, and he found Felicity standing at the end of the couch, arms folded and mouth curved into a frown. “No, what?”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “You’re not doing this again, Tommy. You’re still half-ragged from going almost a week with no sleep, and don’t think I didn’t notice that all you did yesterday was _nap_.” He winced, looking away. “You need to sleep. I need you sharp tomorrow.”

Tommy turned a dull glare on her. “I’ll be fine. Besides, if you sleep, I need to keep watch, if I sleep, you have to keep watch. One way or the other someone’s staying awake. Might as well be me, I’ve been conditioned for it.”

Felicity flinched oddly at that reminder, and Tommy shifted uncomfortably. However, if he thought that meant he’d won, the stubborn jut of her chin quickly disabused him of the notion.

“Tommy, it’s just a few hours. Talia’s not going to bust down the door and murder us in this particular tiny window of time if we let our guards down just enough to rest.”

Tommy dropped his eyes to somewhere around Felicity’s middle, not really seeing her, his jaw working and hands clasping together, thumb pressing at the heel of his opposite hand. Unease curled like a cold snake in his stomach, wriggling sinuous and tight. “I can’t,” he admitted in a hush.

Felicity frowned, her arms falling to her sides, and took a step closer. “Tommy…”

“Felicity, I _can’t_.” He looked up and met her eyes, silently pleading for her to understand. “I can’t just—you don’t know the things I—” he cut off with a click of teeth, blowing a harsh breath from his nose, eyelids fluttering before he tried again. “You’re right, it makes perfect sense that this specific window of time is unlikely to be the moment she comes for us, not when it hasn’t been any of the other moments it might have been. You’re right we both could use the sleep. But I… I _can’t_.”

She stood inches away now, one arm held tight across her stomach, face tipped down to look at him and writ in furrows of concern.

Tommy tilted his head back to look her in the eye. “I can’t just go in the other room and leave you there. I won’t sleep. I’ll just hear every sound as if it’s her, feel every shift of air like a door is open that shouldn’t be. Every single second I leave you unprotected is another I watch you killed, or tortured, or—”

He broke off with a cutting intake of breath, his heartrate kicking up, hunted by something that both was and wasn’t in the room with them. Letting that breath go, skating shaky and thin across his teeth, his lips, he swallowed hard and admitted in a tight whisper, “Or made into something like _me_.”

Felicity’s arm tightened over her stomach, her brow knitting together and eyes sheening wet.

“So I can’t _,_ ” Tommy cleared his throat.

Felicity searched his face for an almost uncomfortably long moment, then drew a hesitant breath. “What if—” she bit her lip, worried it between her teeth, head shifting to one side and her hair sliding over her shoulders, frizzy golden curls. She pulled her arm away from her stomach. “What if you can.” Tommy narrowed his eyes at her and wished she’d stop pushing, but she shook her head, weight shifting from foot to foot. “I just mean… if that’s why, if it’s because you’re worried something’s going to happen to me when you’re not looking, not there to stop it…”

Tommy’s eyes widened and he sat up straight. She couldn’t be saying—

“What if you’re there, then. With me.” Tommy’s mouth fell open, but Felicity pushed forward, cheeks flushing. “It’s just one night. Just a few hours. We both need the sleep, and if this is the only way that’s going to happen, then… sleep in my room.”

Tommy scraped his fingernails over the texture of his jeans, the sensation confirmation he was awake. Licking his lips, he murmured, “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

Felicity scowled at him, cheeks blooming red, embarrassed and stubborn. “It’s practical. I’m not inviting you to spoon, Tommy, just. Sleep where I’m sleeping, and if something happens, you’ll be right there.”

He stalled, pulling his lip through his teeth, almost overwhelmed by the tug of temptation threading like fishing line through his chest, behind his heart, hooked into his spine.

Hesitantly, Felicity raised one hand, palm up, extended to him. “Just—at _least_ sit with me. Even if you still can’t sleep then, sit _with_ me. I know if you don’t you’ll just lurk outside the door like some kind of creepy gargoyle. Then _I_ won’t sleep either.”

Tommy searched her face, then dropped his eyes to her open hand. He should still say no. Pull away and put some distance between them. For both their sakes. Every line that had existed between them had blurred—some had erased. This would not help.

And yet.

And yet he was acutely conscious of the very real chance that everything about the tied-up complication of Tommy-and-Felicity was about to come a very abrupt end. There was every chance only one of them would make it out. There was every chance _neither_ of them would make it out. And Tommy had every intention of dying if it came to the crossroads of his life and Felicity’s freedom.

Their remaining time was finite.

Even if they both made it out… this was ending.

And yes, Tommy knew it was wrong, fucked up on every conceivable level, he knew it was selfish and absurd, and more than a little terrible… but he found himself desperate to linger in this moment for as long as it lasted. He would have to let go soon enough. What was a few hours more of hearing her breathe, being able to look over and see for himself that she was alright, that she was _there_?

(And if he got Felicity out, and couldn’t follow, and wasn’t killed… didn’t he want _one_ memory, one sure, real, _true_ thing to hold onto when Talia began to carve him open again?)

He should say no.

Tommy took her hand.

—

After changing into sleepwear, they settled in Felicity’s room quietly, moving in concert like opposite polarized magnets, a constant shift of space in the push-pull between them, until Felicity slid between the sheets and pulled the covers up to her waist, lying on her side facing the lamp.

Moving as if there were nothing but thin ice below him, Tommy sat gingerly on the other side of the bed, drawing his bare feet up and stretching his legs out atop the covers. He crossed his ankles, leaning back against the headboard with a heavy sigh, a pillow shoved in the small of his back.

One hand rested in his lap, fingers curled around the cool grip of a gun. Another gleamed darkly under the lamplight on the bedstand beside Felicity. He had insisted that they both at least be armed. The watch on his wrist ticked along in near-silence, its alarm set to go off in four hours.

The room was a muted bubble of low, warm light and tidal breathing, a world encapsulated in the warmth of Felicity’s body beside him. He turned from his staredown with the door and let his gaze linger over the spill of her hair across her white pillowcase, watched the soft cotton of her grey tee shirt stretch and move across her shoulder blades as her ribcage expanded and contracted.

For a span of minutes Tommy took care not to count, he let the rhythm of the room envelop him, lulling him into a relaxed fugue til he breathed with her and could almost—almost—rest.

Just when he thought her asleep, Felicity drew a breath that broke pattern, snapping Tommy back into awareness of himself, self-consciously turning back to face the door.

“Tommy, when we get out… have you thought about what we do from there?”

Tommy stared straight ahead and swallowed hard, the vast unknown of the all too near future rushing up on him from behind once more. “I’ve thought about it.”

Felicity rolled onto her back to look up at him, those soft brown-and-gold curls framing her cheeks, one hand resting on the covers over her stomach. “We’re going to call Oliver, right? When we get away from here?”

A conflagration of anxiety and guilt and uncertainty lit in Tommy’s chest, but he only shifted a little against the headboard, the sheet rustling beneath him. Taking a deep breath, like a man who expected it to be his last, he murmured, “Yeah. We call Oliver.”

Felicity lapsed into silence long enough to make him think she might have finally drifted to sleep, but he couldn't make himself look.

Then, soft and a little hesitant, voice somehow muffled by the hush of the room and the late hour, she asked him, “What are you going to do… when you see him again.”

He gave in without consciously surrendering and turned his head to look at her. She'd shifted again onto her side, the shadows pouring over the curve of her hip, the dip of her waist beneath the bedcovers, making of her some soft dream, or perhaps a kindly omen. Her eyes glittered up at him, searching his face.

Tommy tried to imagine it. Tried to picture Oliver standing in front of him, with the realization Tommy was _alive_ dawning on his face. Tried to imagine opening his mouth to launch Oliver's name from his tongue. The look on Oliver’s face when he knew—when he knew—

Tommy tried. But all he saw was red red _red_. Blood and fury and impenetrable, smothering **red**. A tsunami wave of judgement and retribution crashing down on his own head.

He swallowed thickly and broke away from Felicity’s patient, curious gaze. Staring again into the dark—the dark which he knew, which welcomed him and had dyed him in its colors—Tommy parted his lips and exhaled.

“I don't know.”

Felicity said nothing after that, and a few minutes later rolled back to face away from him. In short order, her breathing slowed and evened, and she slept at last.

After another stretch of silence and half-formed thoughts, Tommy’s eyelids grew heavy and he gave in, sliding down to lie against the mattress. He shoved the gun under his pillow, turned to put his back to Felicity—to lessen the hollow ringing of those inches that separated them—and closed his eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that the second half of this conclusion will arrive Wednesday evening! And just so you're all plenty warned in advance, I may take a small (very small, weeks, really) hiatus between Parts 2 and 3 of the series, just to catch my breath.
> 
> Special, endless thanks go to StoriesofImagination, always_a_queen, ohemgeeitscoley, and StoriesbyLadyChi. These ladies held my hand and held me together and yelled and screamed and peppered me with questions always right when I needed it, and I couldn't have got this far without them. <3


	17. Of Freedom and of Pleasure (Nothing Ever Lasts Forever) (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at the end, my friends. You have all made this a magnificent ride, and I hope you'll be there with me on the next leg of the journey.  
> \--  
> Mild warnings for action-violence and brief descriptions of gore.

Tommy’s alarm roused them both shrilly with two hours to prepare.

As surprised as Tommy was by how deeply he’d slept—and as reluctant as he was to leave that final bubble of relative safety and warmth in the lamplight with Felicity at his back—he woke alert and energized. As he and Felicity swung out of opposite sides of the bed, adrenaline sang through Tommy’s veins in a slow, steady pulse of _now now now now_

Without words, the two of them split to ready themselves and their supplies, reconvening in the kitchen.

One last time.

Tommy fixed them a breakfast of oatmeal and fruit, one last time.

When Felicity arrived at the table, he found himself struck dumb and still, staring at her.

In sturdy canvas black cargo pants, dark gray henley, structured combat jacket, and tough black boots, her brown-to-gold hair braided over one shoulder, she looked…

Like a fighter. A survivor.

She looked like herself.

Tommy dropped his gaze when he realized she was watching him stare, swallowing hard around an inexplicable lump as he set her bowl and spoon down at her chair.

An absurd sadness burned slow up from his gut to smolder in his chest, missing the sweatshirt she’d so rarely been without in the weeks since she’d first walked through this door. The sweatshirt that had been his.

She had shed it like sloughing off an ill-fitting skin. Was shedding _him_. And everything this place had—that Tommy had—pressed on her.

He moved around the table and took his seat while Felicity circled to hers. Blowing out a breath, he picked up his spoon and thought to himself, _Good_.

He cleared his throat. “Eat up, and quick. Assuming we make it out, there’s no way to know when it will be safe to take the time for food again.”

Felicity just nodded, taking up her spoon and digging in.

Tommy concentrated on his own bowl, forcing down each bite, his throat attempting to constrict around every swallow, stomach too tight a bundle of nerves to welcome the necessity. Thoughts scrolled through his skull like a rolling marquee of everything that could be about to go wrong.

A loud clink snapped him back to attention, and he looked up to see Felicity sitting back, fingertips tapping on the tabletop restlessly, her bowl empty. Glancing down at his own, Tommy had eaten less than half his oatmeal in the minutes it had taken Felicity to wolf down her entire portion.

Upon his raised brows, she shrugged. “I stress eat.”

Tommy blinked, surprised to realize how many things he’d still, in all his surveillance, observation, and close quarters interaction, never learned about Felicity Smoak.

Would he ever have the chance?

He certainly didn’t have the right.

Impatient, Felicity nodded at his bowl. “Are you finished?”

“Yes,” he answered, soft and low, thinking of more than just breakfast. “I’m done.”

For a moment, she narrowed her eyes on him thoughtfully, and he thought she might say something… he wasn’t sure what.

But a moment later, she shook her head and stood, turning towards the cache of supplies in the living area.

He pushed his chair back and stood, watching her as she crossed the room, his fingertips on his bowl before he remembered there was no point to cleaning up after himself here anymore. Felicity rounded the couch and looked over everything.

When she turned and looked at the armchair— _her_ armchair—with the thick book she had been reading so many nights resting on the arm, Tommy looked away just as she touched the hardcover with her fingertips, as if in goodbye.

He went around the couch in the other direction, crouching by the neatly laid out weapons and beginning to arm up, slipping a slim knife into each boot, a long tactical blade into a sheath at his hip, a handgun in the holster at the other, a pair of flashbangs into one cargo pocket and a grenade in the other.

“Felicity.” She turned away from the chair, a pink flush spreading over her cheekbones despite her stony expression. Ignoring it, he chucked his chin at her and pulled a wristwatch from his pocket and tossed it to her. She caught it in both hands. “It’s already synchronized with mine.”

“What,” she muttered wryly, “doesn’t spray acid when you hit the alarm button? Have a secret compartment or release a poison dart when you press on the face?”

Licking his lips, Tommy leveled her with a droll stare. “It tells the time. You cannibalized the poison dart watch for your timing mechanism.”

Pursing her lips at him jokingly, she sighed, “You make a terrible Q.”

Not quite able to stop himself, he tossed her a wink and a rakish grin. “Good thing you’re here.”

Humor fading, Felicity dropped to one knee and started to arm up as well. “Not for much longer.” She grabbed the light pack that held extra ammo, small arms, and a handful of emergency supplies, shrugging it on and rolling her slender shoulders to adjust to the weight. Finally, she picked up a small handheld device, just a battered black case with a button at the top, and looked up to meet Tommy’s eyes. “You ready to get out of here?”

For a startled second, he bit back the wild urge to say _no_. Drawing a deep breath, he slung the strap of a rifle over his shoulder and straightened to his feet, Felicity mirroring him. Sweeping his gaze over the whole of the apartment, the comfortable living area and his eclectic collection of books; the tidy little kitchen he and Felicity had shared meals in; the darkened, empty mouth of the hall; the simple dining table and the plain chairs that had broken Felicity more than anything else he’d watched her experience—or put her through—simply for not being bolted down.

Tommy committed it all to memory—one last time.

Meeting Felicity’s eyes again, he let that breath go, and answered with a firm nod. “Let’s go.”

—

There was no time to pause and be sentimental when the door closed behind them.

Immediate right, down the hall, stop at the corner. Coast clear. _Move_.

Tommy led the way with sharp, sure strides, Felicity at his side, just behind. They cut through the halls in silence, though Tommy kept silent count in his head of the seconds they trod underfoot, every minute of hallway behind them running out til the shift change was complete, the cameras were cycled through for start-of-shift checks, and they were noted in the halls.

Blood rushed in his ears, under his skin, so close to the surface and expecting to bleed. Electric tension, anticipation buzzed down his spine, and Felicity’s breath sounded impossibly harsh and loud, boots practically thundering against the floor.

They ran out of time and corridor at the end of the third hallway—empty in that hush of an hour so late that the very air felt thick with resting silence—in front of a heavy steel door that divided the private residential section of the facility from the rest. They stood close in front of it, the walkie talkie clutched tightly in Tommy’s hand—waiting, dreading to hear they had been spotted too soon—as he turned to Felicity, her wrist raised and lips mouthing the countdown.

_Seven_

_Six_

_Five_

_Four_ —

Felicity lifted the device in her fist. Heart slamming out the count against his sternum, Tommy nodded when she looked up at him and turned on his heel, raising his free hand to the waiting keypad—

The walkie crackled to life in Tommy’s hand—

“ _Intruders spotted_ —”

“No,” Felicity whispered desperately, meeting Tommy’s eyes, her own wide with fear.

“— _at least two, south supply entrance, converge and capture if possible, eliminate if necessary_.”

Felicity and Tommy dropped their stares to the walkie as confirmations answered, their expressions growing in confusion. They were well within the heart of the facility. The south supply entrance was halfway between them and their diversion.

“What?” Tommy asked incredulously. “Who—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Felicity interrupted ferociously, meeting his gaze, face sharpening in determination. “We have to go. _Now_.”

She raised her fist again. Swearing, Tommy spun and typed in the door code, leaning forward for the retinal scan. As soon as the high-pitched chirp signaled confirmation and the door unlatched, Tommy turned again and watched Felicity’s thumb slam home on the button.

Three seconds.

He grabbed her arm, shouldered the door open, dragged her with him—

—and reflexively pushed her into a crouch, covering her head with his arms as, on the other side of the facility, their diversion exploded.

The muffled _boom_ was louder than Tommy had expected, and he stared up with wide eyes as the walls shook and bits of plaster rained down from the ceiling. Emergency dome lights in the ceiling flashed brightly to life as a shrill, piercing alarm began wailing across the facility. Felicity pushed out of his arms, and Tommy raised his eyebrows at her. “How powerful did you make that bomb?”

Felicity swiped a stray curl from her mouth and gave him a harried look. “I’m not exactly a demolitions expert, Tommy! I didn’t have a lot of time to work with, I erred on the side of _bigger_ , okay?”

Tommy stood up with her, a hand on her elbow to balance her against the pack on her back. “Well between the assassins, these mystery guests, and the fire, we need to get the _hell_ out of here. Let’s move.”

Without thinking, he took Felicity’s hand and led the way.

As they hurried through the corridors, they listened to voices crackle over the walkie talkie in short bursts of command and relay, directing all personnel between the site of the explosion and confronting the intruders. They ducked briefly once into a dark, empty room to hide as an assassin ran past in the direction they’d come from. Tommy waited as the bootfalls fell to silence again, cold sweat sliding a path down his back.

Felicity squeezed his hand, and they were off again.

Reports continued over the walkie, fire consuming the east sector, violence clashing to the south, shots fired, men down.

Fear made them reckless.

Holding tight to Felicity’s hand, the walkie in his other, their scurry became a run as they began to draw nearer their exit through an auditorium that had been converted to a training room, and Tommy pulled Felicity with him around one corner, faster around another, around another—

They careened around a blind turn and collided heavily with a body; the walkie slipped out of Tommy’s grasp, shattering into pieces on the floor, and Felicity’s hand was ripped from his as she stumbled into the wall.

Tommy rocked back and found himself staring at Dr. Malik, clutching the frame of the door she had been walking through. She stared at him with wide eyes.

“Merlyn. What—”

Malik turned her head and took in Felicity, her clothes, the pack on her shoulders. Her face hardening, she straightened and turned that reptilian stare again on Tommy. “Betrayer.”

There was a knife in Tommy’s hand before the thought to pull it had fully formed. His heart leapt into his throat—remembering Malik standing with Talia over that file, standing with Talia over him, holding back Tommy’s flesh for Talia’s hand to root around in his guts—and he choked on it.

Malik’s eyes found the blade and her lips twitched into a snarl. “I told her your leash was too long,” she spat, and smiled coldly. “You will heel.”

Fear spread like frost in Tommy’s lungs, his eyes going wide as Malik inhaled. His whole world telescoped down to her lips pulling across her teeth to shape one word, and his muscles betrayed him, paralyzing in anticipatory terror.

“ _Istasl_ —”

A muffled shot exploded behind Tommy, and Malik staggered back with a cry, blood blossoming on the cream blouse covering her stomach. She touched a hand to it and looked at the red painting her palm, then over Tommy’s shoulder.

Tommy turned his head to see Felicity standing by the wall, feet shoulder width apart, hands cupping her handgun with its long black suppressor on the barrel, shooting stance perfect. Her expression was molded steel, cut like a blade, determined, cold—unforgiving. In a heartbeat, she launched across the distance between her and the doctor, crashing the butt of her gun against Malik’s temple.

The doctor crumpled to the floor, and Felicity used the toe of one boot to flip her over, setting her foot against the gunshot wound in Malik’s gut. She held the gun pointed at Malik’s head, breathing rapid and harsh as she assured the doctor was unconscious.

Tommy swallowed hard, his body responding to him, if clumsily, as he fumbled to resheath his knife and took a step towards Felicity. “Felicity.”

Her head jerked up at her name, eyes round and dark, face flushed. Glancing back again at the doctor, she stiffly lowered her gun and licked her lips, taking her boot off Malik’s stomach. The sole squeaked against the linoleum floor.

Meeting Tommy’s eyes, she said with conviction, “That was _really_ satisfying.” Brows leaping high, Tommy barked a startled laugh, and Felicity shook herself, sweeping her gaze over him. “You okay?”

“Am _I_ —?” Tommy shook his head, sucking in a deep breath to steady himself. “I’m fine. We have to go. Now.”

Felicity nodded, and with one last glance at Malik bleeding slowly on the floor, one hand still holding the gun, she started down the hall again.

Tommy hesitated only a second, staring at the bloody bootprint Felicity tracked behind her, and then he ran to catch her up.

They were running blind now without the walkie, and Tommy prayed to things he hadn’t believed in in a very long time that their exit remained clear. The alarm continued to shrill as they ran, screaming panic that demanded an answer his locked teeth wouldn’t allow.

Felicity was even with him, sweat slicking in the hollow of her throat and darkening her temples, hands empty again. She looked around wildly, brows bunched in fear. “Tommy, how close?”

He snatched her hand again, skidding sharply right around a sudden turn. “Close. Almost there.”

As they took another long hallway, the temperature rose and the air began to thicken oppressively, the acrid tang of smoke teasing the back of Tommy’s throat with every breath. “Shit.”

If the fire had spread to cut off their exit, they were fucked.

“Tommy?” Felicity’s voice had a frantic edge, her fingers squeezing his just as hard as he clutched at hers.

“Next turn, Felicity!” Tommy warned. “ _Left_!”

They turned hard, Felicity crying out as he pulled on her arm—

—and they skidded to a halt.

On the right side of the hall were two sets of double doors, one set five feet ahead of Tommy and Felicity, the second at the opposite end of the long hall, both opening into the auditorium through which they would reach their designated exit.

The far end of the hall, past the second set of doors, was on fire.

Flames licked towards them along the ceiling, preceded by a creeping tide of black smoke.

Breaking them from their shock, the far doors slammed open, and three assassins clad in black tumbled out.

Felicity gasped, taking a step back, then covered her mouth and coughed.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Tommy whispered, stomach dropping into his boots.

Two of the assassins dove right back through the door—but the third turned and looked right at them.

Ar-Rāqiṣ.

She hesitated in only a second of incomprehension, her eyes dropping to Tommy’s and Felicity’s linked hands. Her eyes widened. Lips pulled back in a snarl.

She started towards them.

“Shit!” Tommy used his grip on Felicity’s hand to swing her in front of him and then let go, shoving her forward—towards the near doors. “Felicity, go! Now!”

She whirled, hand on the door, clearly torn.

“ _Go_!” He barked. “I’ll be right behind you!”

She held his eyes for one more moment, then ripped open the door and threw herself through it. A flechette bit deep into the wood a half-breath later, and Tommy returned his attention to Ar-Rāqiṣ.

—

Felicity stumbled into the room as the door slammed behind her, coughing as her lungs filled with the haze of smoke filling the room. The fire in the hall was worse in here, devouring the ceiling and cutting across the center of the wide space like a dividing line as it ate through the training mats and dummies.

Felicity coughed, and forced her feet to move forward as she frantically took in the hellish landscape around her. Her boots lifted from the floor as if pulling out roots with each step, her heart beating brutally against her ribcage, as if pummelling her for leaving Tommy behind.

He’d be right behind her. He had to be.

He could handle one assassin.

Blinking away tears as the smoke stung her eyes, Felicity squinted through heat and haze and spotted the glaring green burn of the _EXIT_ sign over the fire door, directly across from her.

She kept going towards it, pulling her gun out again, pulse racing in her throat.

So close. Oh god, _so close_.

The doors behind her shuddered with impact, and Felicity stopped halfway to freedom and whirled, hands cupping the butt of the gun and eyes wide.

Tommy.

She took a step back, setting her jaw in grim determination.

“Felicity!”

She froze, faltering mid-step.

“It can’t be,” she whispered, eyes wide. Slowly, as if moving through freezing water, she turned her head.

Across the long room, through fire and smoke, stood a figure hooded in green leather.

Felicity inhaled so hard it hurt, body wrenching around and feet carrying her three steps, her hands squeezing so tightly on the grip of the gun that the metal bit at her fingers. She stared, unblinking, smoke pricking at her eyes, and she let the tears slip down her cheeks to flash-dry in the heat.

“Oliver?” she breathed. Familiar green leathers, that grizzled, square jaw she’d know _anywhere_ , bright eyes in the dark green of his mask—bow in hand. She filled her lungs, shouted—almost sobbed— “Oliver!!”

He shouted something, but was drowned out as the fire along the interior wall blazed higher, crackling and roaring.

“Oliver!” Felicity shouted again, eyes darting desperately for some way to cross the room to him. There were flames everywhere, spreading towards her now—bodies in black on the ground at his feet, unconscious or dead. It was as if hell had opened up between them.

Oliver’s jaw clenched and his shoulders squared. He took a step towards her—

—the door near Felicity _slammed_ open. “Felicity!”

Ripping her eyes from Oliver’s, she turned her head and found Tommy panting in the doorway.

The fire roared again, and Tommy’s eyes darted up, widened in terror, and dropped back to her face. “ _Move_!!”

She stood, frozen and confused and torn—and Tommy launched across the room at her, barrelling into her side—

—just as a burning chunk of ceiling fell where she had been standing.

Felicity clung to Tommy, his arms around her waist all that kept her standing as she stared at the flaming rubble. He shook her, and she looked into his sweating, frightened face.

Her fingers bit into his shoulders. “Tommy—Oliver! He’s—”

“Felicity!”

Felicity and Tommy swung their gazes across the room together—and Oliver stood gaping, face sheet white, wide eyes fixed on Tommy.

Above them, the ceiling groaned threateningly.

“Shit,” Tommy breathed, hands viselike around her waist. He tore his gaze from Oliver and clenched his jaw, and disentangled from Felicity. “Shit! We have to go!”

Felicity wanted to protest, wanted to shove him away, wanted to drag him through the flames and across the room to Oliver. But Tommy yanked hard at her hand, and another little chunk of ceiling fell, and they scrambled for the door, Felicity throwing one last desperate, pleading look at Oliver.

Three steps from the exit—two—

Tommy cried out, buckling and nearly pulling Felicity down as he stumbled, clutching at his side.

“Tommy!” Felicity screamed, pulling at him. Her wild eyes found a knife embedded low in his ribs, sunk in to the hilt, blood rapidly spreading around it to stain the gray of his shirt black.

She looked frantically back over her shoulder, and in the doorway stood the assassin from the hall, her face carved in grim, murderous lines as she glared at Tommy. As Felicity watched, trying to drag Tommy to the door while he struggled to get his feet back under him, the assassin pulled back her arm, another knife gleaming in her hand.

Stumbling to crash Tommy into the release bar of the fire door, Felicity fumbled to pull up her gun—

—and the assassin stumbled back with a furious cry, an arrow striking her in the shoulder of her throwing arm.

Helpless tears fell down Felicity’s cheeks as she restrained herself from searching for Oliver’s silhouette through the flames—no time—no _time_ —

She shoved through the door with a groaning Tommy, who finally took back most of his own weight, face dead white and lips bloodless as he pressed them together against the pain.

Cool, almost _unbearably_ fresh outside air slapped Felicity in the face, and she sobbed as she staggered with Tommy out the door and into the night.

“Come on,” Tommy bit out, throat straining. “Almost there.”

“Oliver,” Felicity gasped. “He was—I could have—we _left_ him—”

“He’ll get out,” Tommy said with grim conviction. “We’ll reconnect later. For now we have to _go_. Felicity, we have to. If we don’t go now—”

“I know,” she answered in a tight, small voice. “I _know_.”

“Over there,” he directed, lifting the arm she wasn’t tucked beneath, supporting him still. She followed the line of his finger and saw the Jeep he’d promised to have stashed and waiting for them.

She turned them and they hurried haltingly towards it. Tommy pulled away from her to stumble stiffly against the rear of the jeep, one hand clutching at the knife still buried in his side, the other shoving deep into his pocket.

He pulled out a set of keys and offered them to Felicity. “You’re going to have to drive.”

For just a moment, she stared at the dangling silver keys, jaw clenched, chin trembling, and wanted to _scream_.

Instead, she snatched them from his fingers and stalked to the driver’s side door, shrugging angrily out of her pack and unlocking the vehicle. She tossed the pack into the back seat as Tommy pulled the passenger door open.

Felicity set one boot in the door, pausing before hauling herself into the seat. She turned her head to look back at the facility behind them—squat, concrete, blocky, as empty of soul and identity as it had tried to make her.

It burned, the fire and smoke a dull, angry red glow above it against the clouded night sky.

Rage and pain boiling in her veins, she spat at the prison that had stolen three months of her life, and climbed into the Jeep.

As she buckled in and slid the key into the ignition, a banging noise dragged her eyes to the rearview mirror—the assassin stumbled out of the fire exit, gripping her shoulder, a snapped-off arrow poking between her fingers.

“Shit,” Felicity breathed, and turned the engine over. Hurriedly adjusting the seat for her shorter legs, she threw the gearshift into drive and glanced wide-eyed at Tommy, who sat stiffly in the seat, holding his side and breathing hard, face screwed up in pain. “Hold onto something!”

He braced one hand against the dash, and Felicity slammed her foot on the gas.

The Jeep roared forward, and Felicity locked her teeth to hold back her fear as she barrelled through the dark, headlights off, for the fence.

Tommy bit out a cry of pain as the whole Jeep jolted, slamming violently through the chainlink, and Felicity swore, desperately wrenching the steering wheel to keep control of the vehicle.

“To the right!” Tommy hissed through his teeth. “Follow the access road, take the highway!”

Breath hitching and hiccupping, furious tears sliding free down her face, Felicity drove them, bumping and jarring, over the dirt and grass to the access road, tires jolting as they hit the pavement and then rolling smooth.

“Lights off til we hit the highway,” Tommy gasped, curling around his side as a pothole jarred him into the door.

“I _know_!” Felicity snapped, leaning over the steering wheel. Her eyes flickered back and forth from windshield to rearview mirror as the facility fell away behind them.

She could see no one following.

The turn onto the highway came up, and Felicity threw them at it perhaps more forcefully than necessary, Tommy swearing loudly as he banged into the door again.

Felicity drove in stricken silence, eyes half-glued to the rearview, for a stretch of minutes until they passed under the first dull-orange streetlamp. Belatedly, she switched on the headlights, easing stiffly back into her seat, white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel holding.

“We did it,” she breathed incredulously. “Tommy, we did it!”

“Yeah,” he answered, voice strained, distracted.

She glanced over at the sound of him puffing rapid, bracing breaths, her mouth falling open as he gripped the hilt of the knife in his side and began to pull, biting back a groan of pain.

“Tommy, what are you doing?” she shouted.

“Have to— _fuck_ ,” he yanked the blade free, and Felicity would remember that wet, squelching, tearing sound for the rest of her life. Blood splattered the passenger door in little gleaming dark droplets, the stain on his shirt spreading more rapidly. “Shit. Shit, shit. _Fuck_.”

“Tommy!” Felicity looked rapidly from him to the road, back and forth, the steering wheel creaking under her tightening hands. “How bad?”

He whimpered as he slumped down in his seat, both hands pressed to the wound in his side. His breath had an edge of a whine to each exhale, his skin clammy and pale. “Bad. Hit deeper than—than I thought. Banging into the door didn’t help.”

“Oh god,” Felicity moaned, the blood soaking Tommy’s shirt across his stomach now. “We have to stop—”

“ _No_ ,” Tommy barked, turning his head to glare at her. “It’s not gonna kill me in the next five minutes, find us cover.”

Swearing a string, Felicity shrugged awkwardly out of her jacket and threw it at Tommy. “At _least_ staunch the fucking bleeding!”

Tommy answered with a wry, dry laugh, balling up the jacket and grimacing as he pressed it over the wound. “Yes ma’am.”

Swallowing hard, eyes burning again, Felicity set her teeth and glared straight ahead, putting on a little more speed and reminding herself Tommy said they were only fifteen minutes from civilization by the highway. She could cut it to ten.

Minutes passed in the tense silence of Tommy’s panting breath and gasps and grunts of pain. Another tear fell down Felicity’s cheek, and she angrily dashed it away.

“You don’t get to die on me, Tommy Merlyn, do you hear me? You don’t get off that easy.” He didn’t answer. “Do you hear me? Tommy?”

She glanced at him and gasped. His head lolled against the seat, eyes closed and mouth open, hand slack in his lap. Only his position shoved against the door kept the jacket pressed in place over his wound.

“Tommy!” Felicity barked desperately. She reached across and smacked him on the cheek twice, but he didn’t respond. “God _damn_ it.”

She bit hard at her bottom lip through rising tears and pushed the speedometer needle higher. “No, no, no. Hold on, Tommy, you _asshole_. Almost there.”

Lights began to rise ahead on the road, and Felicity’s eyes widened. The tall sign for a Desert Rose Motel loomed up out of the dark, advertising VACANCY in bold, glaring red neon.

Felicity banked hard to turn into the back parking lot, steering clear of the management office at the front, switching the lights off as she pulled to a crooked stop in a space, tires screeching.

Swearing under her breath, she tore off her seatbelt and twisted to pull the pack from the back seat, digging in it for the tiny toolset Tommy had brought her for the bomb. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do.

Pausing to put her hand in front of his nose and mouth—something desperate trembling in her as his breath puffed warm and shallow against her skin—she threw herself out of the Jeep and stumbled across the pavement and onto the sidewalk, gaze casting back and forth, but the lot and strip of rooms appeared deserted.

Jaw squaring, she strode up to a flaking orange-painted door and banged on it with her fist, plastering against the wall beside it and gun in hand while she waited for a space of ten breaths.

No answer.

Licking dry lips, she shoved the gun into her waistband and dropped to her knees in front of the door, unrolling the wallet of tools and setting to on the basic, shitty-model card reader above the knob.

In moments, the little light turned green and the door unlatched with a chirp—and Felicity realized if she never heard that sound again in her _life_ it would be too soon—and she leapt to her feet, shoving the door open and grabbing a trash can just inside to prop it open.

She raced back to the Jeep, yanking open Tommy’s door and catching the balled up and bloody jacket as it tumbled out.

“Tommy! Come on, Tommy, wake up.” She shook his shoulder, slapped at his cheek. His lashes fluttered, but his eyes didn’t open. Grimacing in advance, she placed her hand over his wound and whispered in his ear, “I’m sorry, but I need you right now.”

She pressed her thumb against the gash, and Tommy jolted awake with a pained cry, his hand snatching her wrist and squeezing so the bones creaked before his eyes focused on her face. “Felicity?”

Felicity snatched her hand free of his slackening grip and hurried to pull his arm across her shoulders. “You passed out. I found cover, and we have to get inside. I need your help. Come _on_.”

She helped him down from the car seat, staggering under his weight until he made his knees hold. Step by weaving step, they made it into the room and Felicity kicked the trashbin out of the way, letting the door close behind them.

She kept going, moving Tommy through the dim around the cheaply-dressed queen size bed and to the back of the room.

She braced him, moaning and eyes rolling, against the wall while she pushed open the bathroom door and flipped on the light.

“Come on,” she puffed, getting under his shoulder again and maneuvering him through the door.

She aimed to sit him on the lid of the toilet, but almost there he tripped over his feet and went down hard.

Felicity banged her elbow on the wall trying to keep Tommy from going headfirst into the side of the tub. Wincing, she leveraged him down with his fumbling help, propping him against the cold bathtub.

“Just hang on,” she pleaded.

“Felicity,” he murmured, eyelids heavy, hooded. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” she snarled, yanking up his shirt to get a look at the bleeding tear in his side. “Got yourself stabbed and leaving me to do all the hard work. Jerk.”

He laughed, choking it off with a wheeze and groan, his stomach muscles clenching against the pain. Blood smeared his skin, and Felicity pulled down a dingy white motel towel, pressing it to the wound. He hissed, but replaced her hands with his to keep the towel in place.

“Just keep pressure there,” Felicity tried to force calm into her voice, but it shook despite her efforts. She grabbed Tommy’s jaw in one bloodied hand, making him open his eyes and focus on her. “Okay?”

He nodded against her palm, and she let go, turning away and rising to her feet to grab the folded towels on the rack above the toilet. She turned on the hot tap of the tiny sink and ran a towel underneath. Tommy watched her dully, skin as pale as the porcelain of the tub, the dark stubble shadowing his jaw smeared with blood across his chin from her fingers.

She dropped back to her knees, and pushed at his hands to carefully ease back the towel, using the wet one to wipe away the excess blood.

“It’s bad,” he rasped. “Right?”

Felicity bit her trembling lips, brows screwed up painfully as she stared at the ragged wound, blood flowing sluggishly now.

It didn’t look good.

She guided his hand to press the towel back over the wound. More tears slipped down her cheeks, and Felicity sniffed, determined to ignore them. “I just need to go get the first aid kit from the Jeep. I’ll be right back.”

“Felicity.” He stopped her, cupping her cheek with his free hand. She looked up at him, glaring, and he stroked his thumb under her eye, swiping away another tear. “Just go. You have to go.”

She looked at him like he was insane. “Leave you here?”

He nodded. His hand on her cheek was far too cool. “We discussed this. And I’m okay with it. I’d take back so much of what has happened between us. But not this.”

Her lips skinned back from her teeth, and she reached up to squeeze his wrist fiercely. “Save your stupid speeches. I’m not leaving your dumb ass here to _die_ , Tommy.”

His lips quirked—faltered—into a crooked smile. His eyes began to roll, then fluttered open again. “I deserve it.”

“I don’t give a _fuck_ ,” she spat, shaking his wrist. “I will be right—”

Tommy’s hand fell from her face, eyes rolling shut and head falling back against the lip of the tub. Behind her, Felicity heard the _bang_ of the front door slamming open.

Heart leaping into her throat, Felicity turned on her knees, snatched the gun from her waistband, and whipped it up to point at the bathroom door just as it was yanked open—

—and she found herself staring up at the fine point of an arrow.

For a long, stunned moment, Felicity sighted down the gun barrel at Oliver with wide eyes, and he stared back, lips parting, bowstring pulled taut.

“Felicity.” Oliver dropped his bow, clattering to the floor with the arrow as he stepped across the threshold, one hand raised. He pushed his hood back with the other, and belatedly, Felicity realized she was still pointing the gun at him. “ _Felicity_.”

She lowered the gun, tears welling in her eyes yet again as her mouth opened, chest constricting with the pain of _hope_ , of relief. “Oliver.” She searched his face, planted one foot under her and rose to a crouch. “ _Oliver_.”

They moved at the same time, him dropping to his knees as she surged towards him, colliding in a crushing hug, her arms circling his shoulders, one hand clinging to the back of his neck as she sobbed. His arms wrapped around her waist, the leather creaking and cool as he held her tight, breathing harsh in her ear.

Felicity raised her gaze over Oliver’s shoulders and found Diggle gaping in the doorway, his own gun pointed at the floor, something raw and fragile sitting naked in his face.

“Tommy?” Oliver rasped, bewildered, by her ear. “Is that—? How—? It _can’t_ be.”

He eased out of Felicity’s embrace, gloved hands still on her waist, and Felicity braced her palms on his shoulders and straightened. He was staring behind her, eyes wide and mouth open, such pain and confusion and _hope_ writ large over his features it almost hurt to look at.

She pressed her hands on his shoulders til he looked at her. “It’s Tommy. Oliver, it’s _Tommy_. I promise it is. It’s—it’s a long story, but right now—he’s hurt. Bad.” She turned and looked at Tommy, fear climbing up her throat to sit sour on her tongue again at how pale he was, face slack in unconsciousness, blood all over him. “Help him.”

Oliver looked at her and swallowed hard. He squeezed her waist once, and nodded, breaking from her embrace and moving towards Tommy.

Wincing, Felicity fumbled to her feet and moved to the doorway, where Digg made room for her. “I am so goddamn glad to see you.”

“Always my knight in shining armor.” She reached for him and he drew her into a fast, fierce hug before she pulled back to turn and watch Oliver.

He checked Tommy’s pulse and pupils—his touch almost reverentially gentle—before patting Tommy’s cheek, whispering, “Come on, Tommy. Don’t do this to me again. Open your eyes.”

When Tommy’s only response was a low moan of pain, Oliver shut his eyes and shook his head. Taking a deep breath, he gritted his teeth and scooped Tommy into his arms.

He nearly staggered with Tommy’s weight when he made his feet, wincing, eyes glittering with tears. With a wrenching heart, it occurred to Felicity that Tommy probably weighed more than the last time Oliver carried his best friend, bloodied and far too cold, in his arms like this.

“Roy’s outside in the van,” Digg squeezed her shoulder, pulling her aside enough that Oliver could get through the door with Tommy and hurry for the gaping front door.

Diggle and Felicity followed him through it, and Felicity stepped away from Digg on the sidewalk, turning sharply for the Jeep as Oliver cut across the parking lot to the familiar black van idling across three spaces.

“Felicity—”

“Just a second, Digg, I just have to—grab something—” she hauled open the passenger door of the Jeep and leaned in to grab the pack she had left behind, shrugging it onto one shoulder and slamming the door closed behind her. She nodded at John, and they darted together to the van, following Oliver through the open doors at the back.

Tommy was laid out, still unconscious, on the long floor of the van, Oliver cutting off his shirt with a pair of scissors pulled from an open heavy duty medkit. Digg and Felicity hurried to settle on the bench seat along the opposite wall, and Felicity looked ahead to the driver’s seat.

Roy was twisted around in the seat there in his red leathers, hood back and mask off, mouth spread in a wide, gleaming grin as his eyes met hers. “I cannot fucking believe you’re here, Blondie. Way too long time no see.”

A startled, damp laugh burst out of her chest in relief, and she grinned at him, her face stretching almost uncomfortably, as if she had forgotten what a smile like this felt like. “Did you miss me?” she teased weakly.

Roy’s smile diminished to a small, sober thing, and he nodded firmly. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Her breath caught in surprise, overwhelming emotion crashing over her.

“Roy,” Oliver snapped. “ _Drive_.”

Roy glanced over Oliver, busily stapling Tommy’s side closed, and raised one skeptical eyebrow, eyes narrowed on the should-be dead man. “You got it, boss.”

“And Roy,” Digg chucked his chin, drawing the younger vigilante’s attention. “Lean on the gas. Merlyn’s lost more blood than I’m comfortable with back here, saline won’t help him for long.”

Roy nodded crisply and put the van in drive.

Digg squeezed Felicity’s knee suddenly, brows jumping high when she flinched. He pulled his hand away, eyes tightening in concern. “I’m gonna help Oliver. You okay?”

She bit her lips, closing her eyes for a long, long second. When she opened them, Digg was still there.

Still real.

It was still real.

Relief lanced through her chest so intense that it was as much pain as joy, and she threw herself at Digg’s chest again. He caught her, grunting in surprise, and wrapped his arms tightly around her ribcage.

There was nothing in the world quite like a John Diggle hug. He had a way of holding onto you that made you feel anchored in a storm-tossed world, but his grip didn’t crush, didn’t trap or cage.

Felicity had, in darker moments, feared she’d never feel the security of Digg’s embrace again.

But he was here. _She_ was here, and for a fierce, aching moment, all it took in all the world was John Diggle’s strong arms and steady heartbeat, and for the first time in three months—his broad hand stroking down her hair, chin tucking against the top of her head—Felicity felt _safe_.

“Missed you so damn much, baby girl,” Diggle murmured. He took hold of her shoulders and set her back, sweeping his eyes over her as if memorizing all the changes. “Nothing’s quite right without you.”

Emotion choked her throat in a knot, but she tried a smile for him.

He sighed and shook his head, stroking a hand against her cheek.

“Digg,” Oliver clipped, voice tight and sharp with fear. He’d shrugged out of his jacket and had a strip of latex tied off above his elbow, a long, clear tube in his other hand. “I need you over here. I need to start a transfusion and I can’t find the vein.”

Digg leaned quickly forward and pressed a firm kiss to Felicity’s forehead, then got up to kneel by Oliver. “Give me that.”

They fell to short, direct murmurs as Digg took over, asserting his field medic experience over Oliver’s haphazard triage knowledge.

Felicity sat back against the bench seat, catching her breath, her friends—her team—her _family_ —around her, the road unrolling beneath them and unfurling miles and miles between her and the hole she’d genuinely feared she might die in.

It was over.

She looked up, and glimpsed Tommy’s pale face between Oliver and Digg’s shoulders.

He’d gotten them out.

They were going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that I will be taking a small hiatus before starting Part 3. Probably longer than 3 weeks, probably less than 2 months. ;) We'll catch back up with Tommy, Felicity, and Oliver and Team Arrow's reunion soon.


End file.
